Adventures in Vengeance
by Haleine Delail
Summary: In the throes of a new romance, the Doctor and Martha find themselves pulled into some seemingly random conflicts that place them under fire, in every possible way. Their relationship is tested, their stamina and their very existence! Who or what is playing games with them? Can they work out the secret to the game before something unseen tears them apart?
1. Chapter 1

**Hi all! Here's my new offering. I think it'll be a bit bizarre.**

**And let me just start out by saying, that this story has a "secret identity," a spoiler from the get-go, which I will reveal as an Author's Note at some point in the next few/several chapters, when I feel the moment is appropriate. If I give away the secret now, it will give too much of the game away too soon. Although, if you've been reading my stuff, you may realize what's happening on your own! If you do, please don't let on in reviews. You can feel free to send me a PM, though.**

**So, suffice it to say, here we go again! I know the first chapter is short, but it does contain a QUALITY cliffie. :-)**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Francine and Clive Jones had gone upstairs in a state of resignation. She had been muttering all the things she could not or would not say to her daughter, and he had been shushing, lulling and reassuring her. Martha and the Doctor had watched them go, knowing that no-one was entirely comfortable with the situation. They shrugged at one another, then picked up Martha's two duffels, headed across the street and into the TARDIS. They would be back for Tish's birthday in August, and then for the start of clinical rotations in early September.

A long discussion had occurred in which the Doctor, Martha, and even Clive, had assured Francine that _of course_ their middle daughter's new romance with the Time Lord would not interfere with her family life, or, more importantly, her studies. The Doctor had acknowledged that Martha absolutely needed to finish medical school, and had agreed to take her on the road no more than one-third of the time, so that she could concentrate on passing her exams next spring.

Martha's mother had asked a million questions, and the uneasy couple had done their best to answer them, without disclosing anything unneeded.

How old was the Doctor, really? Nine hundred and three.

No, really? Really.

Would he stop loving her if he regenerated? Very, very unlikely.

Could he maybe use some of his regeneration powers to ensure Martha's safety? No, sorry, it doesn't work that way.

What if he got captured again, like he had by the Master, only on a distant planet - what's Martha supposed to do then? It had happened before, and she had always found a way to get him out of it.

Didn't he think it was irresponsible of him to put anyone in that situation? Perhaps it is, but that's why he had a tendency to travel with responsible people. Well, more or less.

How many times had he been in relationships like this with companions? Well, that's a bit touchy to discuss...

Had he been married? Yes.

More than once? Yes.

Had children? Yes.

What had happened to them? That's a longer conversation for not so late at night...

"And kids, forgive me," she had asked in her businesslike way. "But, what kinds of _precautions_ are you taking? You know, to prevent pregnancy?"

"Oh," Martha said, standing up. "We are _so _done talking now."

Clive and the Doctor were able to calm them both long enough to end the conversation civilly, the worried parents had gone to bed, and for now, the lovers were free.

* * *

Free, though only for a very short while, because within a few minutes of dematerialising from the Jones family's street, the TARDIS picked up a wonky signal coming from somewhere in middle America.

"What do you mean by _wonky?" _Martha asked the Doctor, staring earnestly at the screen full of Gallifreyan symbols, as if she were at all capable of helping to make sense of them.

"Just something alien, trying to disguise itself as everyday human technology," he answered. "It's trying to cloak."

"But they weren't banking on us tracking 'em down," she muttered, still staring at the screen.

"Nope," he agreed.

They set a course to land in the vicinity, and when they exited the TARDIS, they found themselves in the midst of a crowd, convivial enough, in what looked like a very large park. A quick glance about let them know that they were in Chicago, at some sort of International festival. People were walking past them, wearing all manner of interesting costumes, and eating exotic foods; two blonde women in kimonos were eating Wienerschnitzel off a stick and a man in Lederhosen was walking with a little with a plush Eiffel Tower hat on her head, eating gelato.

There were booths nearby with different games and culture-specific activities to do, some of which were simply exhibits with video enhancements and dioramas, some of which were cute little ring-toss games that the Scandinavians play, handed down from the Vikings.

The Doctor couldn't help but smile widely, and Martha laughed out loud at the fun atmosphere.

"Who ever said the Americans don't care about anyone but themselves?" she asked.

"Hellooooo Chicago!" a voice said in the distance, coming through speakers. "Are you all having a good time?"

With that, some of the people around them cheered; others were absorbed in something else.

"I'm your meeew-sical host for the day, Vance Ray, and I'm here to kick off an afternoon of multicultural, multilingual, meeeew-sical fun! We're gonna kick off today with an Oldie but a goodie, right here from the good old U.S. of A! In a meeeew-sical style indicative of this great country of ours, and lyrics that invoke our undaunted patriotic spirit! Are you ready?"

Again, a few cheers came through, but the crowd was really much more interested in the games and food.

"Hey, Chicago! I'm talking to you! You, with the Moo-shoo pork in your hand! Hey, you, with the Statue of Liberty shirt! You, dude, with that curried turkey leg! You, with the brown suit and the blue box! You, the guy dressed like the Crocodile Hunter! Talking to you! Are you ready?" he shouted even louder.

"Did you hear that?" the Doctor asked Martha, his eyes wide.

"Hear what?" she asked, amid the now much more enthusiastic cheering from the crowd.

But he did not answer. Instead, they both found themselves muted, deafened and compressed. From head to toe, they felt their bodies go flat, and were whisked, whipped through some kind of tunnel. They could not scream, nor put conscious thought to the nausea they felt.

And then they were dumped, unceremoniously, in a field. They found themselves ankle-deep in mud, and thigh-high in grass. Within a few moments, they were surrounded by angry-looking men with guns.


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, so don't go fact-checkin', everyone. As the Doctor will point out, the exact historical events will prove irrelevant...**

**And keep in mind, war is ugly, and sometimes the individuals involved in war can get ugly. Just sayin'.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Hands up!" one of the men-with-guns shouted.

Martha and the Doctor had both already put up their hands in a disarmed fashion, but they did not argue, and raised their limbs even higher.

"Now state your names and where the hell you've come from!"

"Erm, I'm the Doctor, and this is Martha Jones," the Doctor said. "We've..."

At this, there was a great clatter amongst the men around them. Almost a panic. The more steadfast of the men kept their weapons trained on the newcomers, but the majority lost their bearing for a moment and turned to one another to titter.

"What? What did I say?" the Doctor asked. He and Martha looked at one another and shrugged.

It didn't take long for the din to die down, though, and all the men had returned to position. The man, perhaps a leader of sorts, said, "No more treacherous words! You'll answer to our Colonel. With your arms firmly in the air, you will follow me, sir, you and your wench. And you will bear in mind that there is a musket trained on each of your heads.

Obviously, the Doctor and Martha obeyed. They walked side-by-side, hands aloft, and followed fifty feet behind the man who had spoken to them. The other men walked abreast all in a line quite a ways behind them, ready to act should one of them flee.

"What the hell just happened?" Martha whispered.

"No idea!" the Doctor responded, more agitated than she expected him to be.

"Well, we're clearly still in America," she pointed out. She was referring to the accent of the speaker, who was marching them toward a cluster of Cypress trees in the distance.

"Mm," the Doctor agreed. "Cypress trees in abundance, grass to our thighs, mud to our ankles... most likely Louisiana or Mississippi bayou country . And the muskets are post-Revolution era. They mentioned their Colonel, but there are no military uniforms. We're talking, probably, 1790, 1800, maybe 1815 at the latest. Sometime before the Americans got their act together as a nation."

"Fantastic," she sighed.

"I guess I just learned the hard way, it's not a good time or place to walk about sounding British."

"Or looking like me," she pointed out.

"Shut up now, we won't pull no punches in whooping you both to ribbons," the leader said. And they made the rest of the short walk in silence.

* * *

The Cypress cluster in the marsh was shallow, nevertheless, they came to a clearing. It was an area on slightly higher ground, where the mud let up enough that someone could build a fire. Just on the other side of a thin wall of trees, they could see the sparkling, wide waters of the Mississippi River.

They could see that the men they had met were only about ten in a company of perhaps twenty-five or thirty. There were also five or six hunting dogs tied up nearby, either sleeping or gnawing on something. At a different time in history, it might have been a bona-fide military camp, but as it stood, they had to make do - and it didn't look like they were doing badly at all. The bayou was rife with resources for a bunch of able-bodied men who were willing to work a little for their survival.

In addition to the smell of baked beans and pork filling the air, there was a small alligator turning on a spit over a fire. The men sat in a circle and chatted, laughed a bit, and shared a bacon and bean meal; the Doctor assumed the alligator meat was a treat for later.

For shelter, there were a few pieces of canvas tied to the limbs of the trees, or hanging from branches driven into the ground. And there was a red tent, obviously where the Colonel slept.

Some of the men seated nearby got to their feet when they saw their fellow soldiers return to the camp with strangers, captives, in tow.

"Colonel Jackson, sir," said the leader. "I request a conference."

A tall man with wild white hair appeared in the flap of the tent, and stepped through. With that, all men within sight stood to attention.

"At ease, men," said Colonel Jackson, waving them all off. "Horton, what say you?"

"Sir, the scouts and I have run asunder of these two folks," said Horton, the ring-leader.

"Well," said Jackson, looking the Doctor up and down. "Ain't you a dandy."

"He's a Red Coat, Colonel," said Horton. "Ask the scouts - talks just like one of 'em. I don't know how nor why he ain't wearing the uniform..."

"And who is the negress? One of ours? Stolen property, perhaps?" asked the Colonel.

Martha Jones was thoroughly a product of twenty-first century cultural mores and was feisty by nature, but by no stretch of the imagination could she be called stupid. She was definitely not keen on being called a negress or _property_, but she knew when to keep her mouth shut. Just now, she had a double whammy of unfortunate prejudices on her person, she was surrounded by volatile young men who were armed and angry, so this moment was not the time for righteous indignation.

The Doctor weighed his options. He could speak, or he could clam up. He sincerely hoped that Martha would choose the latter option for her own survival, but frankly, for his part, staying silent had never got him anywhere. Whereas talking his way out of a digger, well, that was one of his strong suits, British accent or no. So, he chose the chatty road, as usual.

As politely as possible, the Doctor asserted, "She's my companion, not anyone's property. I'll thank you to call her by her name, Martha Jones. And I'm the Doctor. Very pleased to meet you, Colonel Jackson. Colonel _Andrew_ Jackson, I presume?"

"At your service," Jackson replied, with a bow, though he never took his eyes off the Doctor.

"Oh, that's brilliant! Martha, look, it's Old Hickory!"

She nodded, but remained silent.

"He says he's some sort of doctor," Horton reported to his superior.

"Some sort of, yeah," said the Doctor.

"And she's your..." Jackson began, and the his face went all askew. "Companion?"

"She is."

Jackson stared at the two of them, as if contemplating the situation. Finally he shrugged, and decided, "Far be it from me to decide what a man gets up to on his own time. Hell, our own Mr. Jefferson has some similar proclivities, don't he? None of my business. What is my business, Doctor, is, what in God's name were you doing out in that field when my men were out scoutin' Red Coats?"

"Honestly, sir, I have no idea."

"Don't you lie to me. I can smell a lie at a thousand yards. It ain't no coincidence - I don't believe in coincidence. You're one of them, and you didn't just turn up in that field out of nowhere."

The Doctor and Martha glanced at each other because the fact was, they _had _just turned up in that field out of nowhere, and in spite of being well-schooled in the truly bizarre, neither of them had any idea why or how. What's more, the Doctor had no idea what to say to appease the situation. His first instinct was to insist that he was on _their _side, but... A man who talked like him, dressed like him, unarmed, with a black woman at his side? This lot were unlikely to believe anything he said that wasn't a confession of heinous treachery.

"Colonel Jackson!" a voice rang out from somewhere within the camp. A man came running across the packed mud and skidded to a stop, nearly running down the Colonel. He swallowed hard, and saluted quickly, and did not wait for the Colonel to tell him _at ease_. "Colonel, there is a company of Red Coats coming right for us - someone has given away the position of our camp!"

The Colonel and all the men squinted at the Doctor and Martha. Then Old Hickory turned his attention back to the frantic young man. "How many?"

"There must be a hundred or more, sir," he reported. "Beating on their drums - that's how come I knew it."

"Well, we're out-numbered at least three to one, don't that beat all? Which direction are they coming from?"

"From downriver, sir."

"They were a decoy!" shouted Horton, cocking his weapon and aiming it at the Doctor's head. "They're a liability, Colonel, the both of them!"

"Stand down, soldier, we don't execute without a fair trial in the United States of America, and there isn't time for that ," said Jackson. The Colonel went stalking through the camp and commanded all men to attention. "We have only a minute or so, men, but we can get the jump on 'em if we're stealthy and quick. Disperse the bales of cotton and conceal yourselves. Don't make a move, and do not fire your weapon until you see the whites of their eyes! Any questions?"

No one spoke nor moved.

"Go!" he shouted. "Horton, take these two, and tie 'em up. We won't execute 'em, but we ain't taking 'em on as a ward. We'll give 'em back to their countrymen, if they'll have 'em."

"Yes, sir," said Horton.

As the little cell of soldiers readied themselves for an attack from the Red Coats, Horton wound some twine round the wrists of the Doctor and Martha, binding them together, and rendering them unable to walk. He then pulled the kerchief that had been tied around his head and gagged the Doctor with it. Once he had done that, he threatened Martha, "You make a sound, I'll see that you're whipped and worse before you're sent into the ranks of your companion's countrymen, and I have no accounting for what they'll do to you - it ain't my concern. Just know that them Red Coats, most of 'em, they've been away from home a long time without their sweethearts. Understand?"

Martha nodded, even though she knew that once the shooting began, this man would have no way of dictating what happened to her.

Horton hauled them by dragging the Doctor by the arm out into the open marsh, with Martha stumbling backwards against him. The two of them wordlessly squatted as low as they could without pulling one or the other of them off their feet. The first red uniform could be seen through the trees just as Horton took cover behind the nearest cotton bale.

The frantic report had been roughly correct, the Doctor reckoned; there were about a hundred British soldiers tramping through the mud now, long-since having killed the noise from the drums. They were clearly surprised, though, to find a silent camp.

"Lieutenant, there's no one about," said one of the Brits, in a crisp, annoying highbrow accent.

"Thank you, Linwood, for stating the obvious. They've left food uneaten, a fire still burning," said, presumably, the Lieutenant. "They've gone in a hurry - just turned and ran, the cowards. Can't have gone far. Search the area."

As surprised as the soldiers had been to see an empty camp, it was nothing compared to when they almost tripped over the Doctor and Martha, squatting in the grass.

"Who goes there?" one asked, and once again, the Doctor found a gun shoved in his face.

"Please, sir, they've tied us up and left us here!" Martha pleaded.

"What's this I hear?" said the Lieutenant, stalking across the short area of muddy marsh between where he stood and where the hostages had been found. "Where are you from, girl?"

"London, sir," she answered. "And so is my friend, here."

Someone leant down and ungagged the Doctor. "Is this true?" a random soldier asked him.

"If it isn't, then my name isn't John Smith," answered the Doctor.

"Well, I'll be. Good God, old man, how have you come to be here?" asked the Lieutenant. "And dressed as you are?"

"It's a long story," the Doctor told him. "Ending with us being captured and left out here to die, while the bloody coward rebels ran for their lives."

"Any idea where they've gone?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, sir," answered the Doctor. "But it's no good searching the vicinity, I'd say."

The Lieutenant smirked, and snorted haughtily. "Figures. The cowards."

Yet another soldier stepped forward and cut the twine binding the two travellers together.

"Well, then," the Lieutenant said. "Men, let's not have this be a wasted journey. There's good food here - we'll bring back the week's feast to the rest of our regiment. As for you, good Mr. Smith, you and your wench would do well to conceal yourselves post-haste. Get yourselves to New Orleans as quick as you can, and onto the first boat out of that God forsaken Gomorrah. But for now, hide, hide."

"Oh, no problem there," answered the Doctor. And he saluted the Lieutenant as the man turned away, and under his breath, he said, "I'm so sorry, Lieutenant."

The Lieutenant then gave orders to advance forward on a scavenging mission into the camp, and Martha grabbed the Doctor's hand and they ran as fast as they could, in the mud, and dove down onto the gooey earth as soon as they heard shots.

"I feel like such a traitor," Martha commented, not having to watch to know that her countrymen, out of her time though she was, were being felled one by one.

"It's what carries history forward," the Doctor said, crawling now to a nearby Cypress, and motioning for her to follow. "The Yankees win the pennant."

A few minutes passed as they made their way to the tree, and in that time, they heard canons firing. Neither of them cared to find out what had happened to any "Red Coat" who had run afoul of an American cannon...

And as they watched, a dozen, then two dozen, then three, then the remainder of the British soldiers retreated and literally ran from the camp, chased by the hounds. A few of them veered right and ducked down in to the low brambles on the riverbanks, to escape the barking hunting dogs.

As they heard whooping, and laughter, the Doctor dared to look, and realised that the cannons had been overloaded with powder and the barrels' tips had melted. The Americans had makeshifted their alligator carcass as a kind of bomb. He advised Martha to follow him a little further, in anticipation of flying gator parts.

In response to Martha's long face, watching the violence, the carnage of man and beast alike, he said, "You know the Brits spend forty years trying to hold onto the American colonies, and they lose. And this is the tail-end of the fight, part of a last-ditch attempt, and... " he trailed off as the alligator bomb went off.

"And?"

"And everything turns out all right. In a hundred years' time, the Yanks and the Brits are allied in the trenches together. And the French! How's that for a funny turn?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Besides," he muttered, somehow contemplative, navigating yet another cluster of Cypress. "I'm not sure history's really got anything to do with this. Something tells me we're not exactly in a linear timestream, where what happens here today in New Orleans affects the future of the American South."

"What are you..." she began to ask. But her words were stifled, and they were whisked back to Chicago. They were, once again, _dumped. _Back in a convivial festival where exotic costumes and food abounded, and the end of a military-esque song came blasting through the speakers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The two recently-whisked travellers looked at each other, both harrowed and confused.

"That couldn't have been real," the Doctor said, looking about at the fabulous, multi-cultural Chicago afternoon, squinting against the sun.

"How could you tell?" she wanted to know. "Is _this _real?"

"This is real," he told her. "There's the TARDIS, there. But that business with the Red Coats and Andrew Jackson... it felt... out of time somehow. And the personal characteristics of almost everyone involved were exaggerated. It felt removed from this reality, or..."

Suddenly, Martha felt quite nauseated. She stumbled to the nearest bin and bent over, but acute as the feeling had been, it passed. Then it welled up again, and passed.

"Well, it appears I'm getting used to this," she commented, standing up straight.

At this, they both came to something of a realisation: this had happened to them before! This, being compressed and then forcibly whisked off to some other locale, but it had never been quite like this in the past. Normally, there was a lot of bravado involved and...

"Well, folks, hope you enjoyed our own Johnny Horton!" said the voice of the emcee as the song died down.

"Horton?" asked Martha.

"Yeah, how 'bout that," the Doctor muttered, almost without moving his mouth.

"And now, we hop across the Atlantic to Spain... but wait! There's more! Today is all about being international, so though the song is in Spanish, the performer is, in fact, Greek! Mario Frangoulis sings for you..." A soft flute played in the background as the emcee spoke.

But the introduction was interrupted once again by a feeling of being squashed, stretched out like a string and then snapped like an elastic band into some other place.

* * *

A hallway, poorly lit. The world appeared to be painted in shades of grey and light blue and lavender. Martha and the Doctor found themselves standing side-by-side, facing a door.

Someone or something was banging from the inside. The sound started out slow, soft, but over the next twenty seconds, it became loud and furious.

Without speaking, they both walked forward toward the door. They each took a deep breath, the Doctor motioned for quiet, and he reached out and stealthily turned the knob and swung the door open, not too far, but not just a crack either.

Within a couple of seconds they registered all of the sights and sounds coming at them through the dim light.

There was man, lying on a bed. Sheets were dishevelled and strewn everywhere - on the bed and on the floor. The beautifully-carved headboard of the four-poster bed was what they had been hearing, as it banged increasingly quickly against the wall. The reason was a woman with thick dark hair, upright, straddling him, grasping the headboard and bounding up and down, back and forth, for all she was worth.

With a gasp, the Doctor pulled back and shut the door, still managing not to make a sound. After a few seconds, they heard the urgent, high-pitched sounds coming from inside the room, often associated with headboard-banging activity. Martha and the Doctor both burst out giggling, then stumbled quietly down the hall, so as not to be heard.

They found that they were in a medium-sized house, though opulently furnished, one floor, and judging from the décor in the parlour, it was perhaps 1920. The Doctor took a peek through the curtains, and muttered, "It's a beach house. Hm - looks like a storm is gathering."

A blonde woman, with her hair pulled back so tightly into a bun that Martha wondered if she could shut her eyes, stuck her head out through what turned out to be the kitchen door. "There you are! You'd better get this to _La Señorita_. It's nearly six o'clock."

Martha looked about, to see who the blonde was talking to, but there was no one, save for her and the Doctor.

"Are you talking to me?" Martha asked.

"No, I'm talking to the Ana's _other_ favourite handmaid," the blonde said, rolling her eyes. She reached back into the kitchen, never shutting the door, and came back out with a tray, handing it to Martha. "Here you go."

"Er, okay," said Martha, looking over the tray. It contained an open French roll with preserves, a pot of tea and a cup, some fresh fruit and a small slice of ham. "Breakfast. Ana's room. The one at the end of the hall." She was waiting to see if the blonde would correct her.

The blonde just looked at her with tedium, and nodded. "Stop stalling. If you don't get in there quick, the two of them are going to fuck themselves into a stupor and will lose track of time again, and then Señor Colerro will catch that boy in the house again, and there will be shooting, and then an inquest, and they'll want to question me... I just don't have to stomach for it. So go."

Martha looked at the Doctor with questioning eyes, and he nodded subtly, letting her know she should probably just go with the flow, to see where it would take them. She walked past him, heading back down the hall to the room where the loud lovers were trying, though not very hard, not to be caught.

"And you," the blonde said to the Doctor. "You'd better get out of here before Señor sees you. What are you doing here at this hour anyway?"

"Erm..." he began, nervously fondling the hair on the back of his head. With wide eyes, and a surprised mouth, he looked at Martha, then back at the blonde.

"Oh," the blonde sighed. "Enough said. _Madre de Díos_, is everyone in this house having a backstairs affair?" She went back into the kitchen, still muttering to herself.

"Where are you going to go?" asked Martha.

He shrugged. "No idea. I'll catch up with you later, let you know if I work out... anything."

Martha nodded, and went back down the hall. She knocked on the door at the end, noting that there was currently no noise. "Señorita, it's breakfast."

"Thank you, Martha, come on in," the girl's voice said from inside, much to Martha's surprise.

Martha struggled to turn the knob with both hands full, and went into the room. The girl, Ana, was already standing, pulling a transparent white lace robe over her otherwise naked body. The young man chose this moment to stand up and reveal himself with utterly no shame. Martha averted her eyes and set the tray down on the desk on her right.

"So, thank you for being on-time again," said Ana. "We didn't realise what time it was."

"Well, apparently, that's what I'm here for."

"And why did you call me Señorita just now?"

"Erm... I..."

"It's okay. There's no need to keep up appearances for Miguel. He knows you're my best friend," Ana said. "He doesn't mind. He would never judge."

Ana fluttered round the bed and threw her arms around Miguel's neck and gave him a good snog that Martha felt she really shouldn't be seeing.

"Well, that would be a bit on the hypocritical side, wouldn't it?" Miguel said to Ana as soon as they finished their liplock.

"Obviously," she said.

The lovers were engrossed in one another for the moment, and Martha took the opportunity to look them over. Obviously, Ana's family was one of some repute, with at least two "staff" in their beach house. Ana's father was not keen on Miguel, and had clearly threatened his life if he ever came near the daughter again... though it didn't seem like much of a well-kept secret that Ana and Miguel were still shagging their brains out, in spite of it all. The couple relied on Ana's best friend, who was also her "favourite handmaid" to wake them in time to get Miguel out of the house before Ana's father found him there, and murdered him.

And Martha thought she knew why. Looking him over as well, she noted that his hair was curly and hung long enough to cover his ears and get in his eyes, and along with an off-white linen tunic, he was wearing a brown pair of trousers that, in the twenty-first century, would have been called "cargo" trousers. They were dirty, and various metal implements stuck out of the numerous pockets. Miguel was a lowly fisherman - not the sort of boy that a semi-wealthy man in 1920 would want his daughter canoodling with.

"_Querido,_" said Ana, pulling her lips away reluctantly. "You'd better go. I'll meet you at the dock in thirty minutes."

"Okay, then. Thanks, Martha," Miguel said, opening the bedroom window. He climbed through it, falling to the ground below, which, Martha guessed, was only about six feet. Ana tossed his black canvas jacket out after him, blew a kiss, and shut the window.

"What's at the dock?" Martha asked, knowing it probably sounded daft.

"Indeed, indeed," Ana said. "There is nothing there for me. I just like to see him off every day, is that so wrong? Besides, you're one to talk!"

* * *

The Doctor slipped out of the house through the back door, as he had been told to do by the uptight blonde in the kitchen. Apparently, Martha was a known servant in the household, the daughter's favourite (perhaps her only friend), and he himself was someone not normally allowed on the premises. The blonde seemed to know him, but didn't like him much. This was proof enough to him that this scenario was not right, and not entirely real - for them to fall into some situation where they were already known and doing some sort of role-play, it was fairly irregular. He _sort of_ knew what was causing it now, ever since hearing the emcee in the park back in Chicago, but there were still about a thousand unanswered questions.

He looked up at the sky, then out at the water - he had been right a little while ago when he'd commented to Martha that there was a storm gathering. The clouds were threatening to obscure the sun, just now beginning to peek over the horizon, but really, it was the angry sea that gave it away. The tide was practically a wall of white, the waves high and foamy, and breaking well past where reasonable breakers normally lie. The sea seemed impatient somehow.

And in the din of the waves crashing upon the shore, the Doctor thought he heard something, some distant whisper. Though, he couldn't be sure that he was hearing it, rather than feeling it, or receiving telepathic messages from the universe.

It was a message of possession, possessiveness. "Mine, mine," it was saying. "You are unworthy of such a treasure, and shall pay."

It gave the Doctor a chill. It was not a voice, exactly, and whatever it was, it didn't necessarily intend the message for him. It was almost a living thought that wafted upon the air...

"_Oye_, wait up!" he heard from behind. He stopped and turned.

Jogging toward him, with his shoes and jacket in hand, was a man with curly hair blasting off as he ran. As he came to a stop beside the Doctor, and his hair fell in his face. He tossed his shoes to the sand, and began to pull on his jacket.

"Hi," said the Doctor. If he was not mistaken, this was the young man he had seen very briefly, beneath the very headboard-savvy girl whose name seemed to be Ana. Now that he was dressed, the Doctor could clearly see he was a fisherman. No wonder the girl's father didn't like him.

And he himself was not liked on the property because he was a friend of the fisherman's. And now, embroiled in a tryst with Martha... well, at least that part was true.

"Hi, yourself," the man said. He planted his bum in the sand next, and began putting on his shoes. "So... do you have anything you want to tell me?"

"Like what?"

"You're meandering about these parts awfully early." He was smirking up at the Doctor.

"Yeah, well, you know..."

"I do know! Things are going well for you, it would seem," He got to his feet and slapped the Doctor on the back. "You dog!"

"Oh. That. Yeah."

The two men began walking again, in the same direction the Doctor had been going.

"So what was it like?" the man asked, after a long pause.

"What was _what _like?"

"Oh, come on! Being with Martha! I mean, you're just leaving now too, yeah? Were you two at it all night, or did you collapse from exhaustion and lose track of the time?"

"Erm, the first one."

The fisherman cackled with glee, and again, slapped the Doctor on the back. "That's amazing! I had a feeling she'd be a firecracker!"

"That, she is," the Doctor replied with a smile, in spite of himself.

"So is my Ana. Now, we collapsed into a heap around midnight," the man informed him. "But she woke me up about an hour ago and wanted to have another go-round."

"Yes, we heard you," the Doctor reported flatly.

The man laughed. "Sorry, _amigo_. That girl, she just can't get enough Miguel, you know?"

Just then, the Doctor felt that frisson once more, that non-voice, that message upon the wind. "You vulgar fool. You are unworthy!"

"Did you hear that?" the Doctor asked, stopping in his tracks.

"Hear what?" the fisherman asked, listening for what, he did not know.

The Doctor stood still and tried to hear once more, but the sound, the thought, the message, had gone.

"Never mind."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The tumult of the sea had died down by the time the sun was halfway over the horizon, and Ana and Martha had to shield their eyes as they stood on the dock. Miguel was already aboard the fishing boat, just about ready to cast off for the day, and they watched him and a fellow crew member ready the nets.

"Hi," said the Doctor appearing behind them.

"Oh, hi," Martha said, though Ana didn't notice. "Where did you come from?"

"I went to Señor Avila to secure today's rations," he told Martha. He showed her a thick white bag he had slung over his shoulder. "This thing is full of beef jerky, bread and bottles of water, enough for eight."

"Okay. Why?"

"Apparently, it's something I do every day before we cast off."

"We?"

"Yep, I come with a boat."

Martha chuckled. "All right, if you say so. So, you're going fishing."

"Looks like, although..."

"What?"

He pulled her aside. "Have you been... well, not exactly hearing a voice, but... it's hard to explain. There's like a vibe on the air, a conscious thought that's being transmitted from somewhere, and..."

Martha continued to listen, holding her face in readiness, but the Doctor could say no more that made any sense.

"Is any of this ringing a bell?" he asked her after a few moments.

"Er, no," she told him. "But then again, your mind is a bit more open to that sort of weirdness than the rest of us."

"I suppose," he muttered. "I just wish I knew what the hell it was."

"What's it saying to you?"

"It's saying things like _you're unworthy, and you will pay_, and I'm getting a definite feeling of possessiveness, or obsession. But it's not intended for me, if it's intended for anyone in particular," he told her. "It's just... like a contagious thought. It's out there for all to hear, if anyone can hear it. I guess it's only me."

"Have you been asking around?" she asked, uneasily.

"Well, I asked Miguel. We're mates, it seems."

"Ah. No wonder you're not allowed in the house."

"Martha!" they both heard coming from the pavement behind them. They looked, and the blonde with the tightly-pulled bun, stood as far out on the beach as she dared, as far as she could without touching either the sand or the beginning of the dock. "Get back home, right now!"

Martha sighed. "Ah, Raquel. Ever with the subtlety."

"What's her story?" the Doctor asked.

"She's head of the household. There are five others of us on staff, and she's our boss. Well, that is, when Señor Colerro isn't being the boss, of course."

"Of course."

"I guess I wasn't supposed to leave with Ana. I'd better go - don't want to ruffle feathers. Be careful out there. The open sea is not the same as deep space. It's much worse."

"I know - I'll be careful."

He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss, and then watched her jog back up the dock to the cement walkway where Raquel stood, tapping her toe.

The Doctor had no desire to accompany the fishing party out onto the open sea, but he wasn't sure if he should try to avoid it either. Trouble was, his Time Lord senses were telling him that the mystery was not to be solved on the boat, but rather here on land.

That is, if there was, indeed a mystery to be solved. In their last adventure, they had simply escaped the crossfire between the Brits and the Yanks, and managed not to die. It hadn't been, in retrospect, that difficult to do, and they had been whisked away once more. In this environment, he wasn't sure what the game was yet. He knew he had a role to play as Miguel's friend and a crew member on a fishing boat, and Martha had her role as a maid in the house, and Ana's friend...

But there was this wafting voice, the contagious thought. Whatever it was, it was possessive, angry, and definitely _not normal_.

He drifted back toward the boat, acting like he was preparing to board. At this stage, apparently, they were ready to cast off, and Miguel was standing on the dock with Ana, wrapped up in yet another snog that left everyone around them wondering where to look.

Miguel pulled away from her gently, and told her he loved her, and he didn't care who knew it.

_Easy for them to say, when they're out here where no-one cares,_ the Doctor thought.

"Give me one more kiss, love," said Miguel, and Ana obliged. "You'll be waiting when I return?"

"Of course. I won't leave the shore the whole time you're gone," she mused.

Miguel smiled. "Patient by the beach," he mused right back, and gave her yet another kiss.

Finally, someone from the boat called out, "Come on you two, _andale._"

"Wretched fisherman!" the Doctor felt inside his head. His senses stood at attention. There it was again, the non-voice. "That's right, say goodbye - _I will not share her!"_

Bells went off in the Doctor's mind. The message, he still felt, was not meant for him. But it might certainly have been meant for Miguel.

* * *

Martha spent the day tidying up the house, talking with the other staffers, making up a history for herself and being, she felt, all-in-all quite good-natured about the whole state of affairs. It was much, much better than having been stuck as a servant at that school in 1913. For one thing, today, she didn't have to deal with unrequited love for some guy named John Smith, at the same time as living a very odd life without the Doctor. And in fact, this time, she could see the Doctor if she wanted, and people were accepting them as a couple, which, in fact, they were. And, objectively speaking, she could see that in this scenario, there was at least _some _emotion allowed in, some passion pervaded the house and their everyday lives. This was a major element missing from 1913. Yes, this was definitely scores better than that.

But the Doctor had said it wasn't real, and she could feel that herself. After the last transport, when she had nearly vomited into a bin, but had stopped herself... the whole thing felt familiar, and Martha had come to a realisation just as the Doctor had. The question was, how did they get back to reality, and what were they supposed to do in the meantime? What if they were stuck here for months or years?

Around noon, the clouds about the house, over the sea and stretching out to the village, had begun to grow dark again. The topic of conversation became a gathering storm, and how when it had dissipated earlier, everyone had thought it would pass them by.

Martha absently realised that a fishing boat had cast off this morning...

By one o'clock, the rain was torrential. By one-thirty, it was over.

* * *

Hours later, she was replacing the books on the shelves after dusting each one when Raquel emerged from the kitchen.

"Has Señorita returned yet?"

"Not that I know of, why?" Martha asked.

"It's late."

"It is?"

"Yeah," Raquel sighed with tedium. "The boat's due back in at six - you shoule know that. She's usually home by now. It's nearly seven, in fact."

"Oh," Martha responded. "I had lost track of the time."

"Well, it's quitting time," Raquel told her. "So, when you're finished with your books, you're free to go."

"Okay," Martha said, though she had no idea where she would go.

"And, erm..." Raquel began. Then she hesitated. Then she went back into the kitchen, and came back out with a glass of lemonade in her hand. "If you wouldn't mind, since you're such a good friend to her, why don't you stop by the beach on your way home and bring this to her."

"All right," Martha agreed, as Raquel placed the glass on the coffee table on a coaster. "If you'd like."

"It's just..." Raquel's eyes, for the first time, betrayed worry. "She usually comes back home all hot and bothered after the boat returns, and... maybe she could use some cooling-down before she sees her father this evening."

Martha smiled softly. "All right, no problem." She realised that Raquel was actually _worried_ about the young girl, not having returned at the normal time, and trying not to let on. Martha replaced the book as quickly as she could, she shed her apron and hung it on the back of the kitchen door, said goodbye, took the lemonade and left.

She started at the beach in the back of the house and followed it north, toward the dock. After about half a mile, she saw.

Ana was standing deadly still, deadly straight, staring out at the sea. Martha's eyes were drawn to the horizon where Ana was looking, and she saw no sign of any kind of boat nor ship. She only saw the churning remains of a storm, and a slowly darkening sky as the sun went down on the other side of the world.

"Hello," Martha said softly as she approached.

Ana did not answer. Upon inspecting her face, Martha could see that it was twisted into an expression of worry. She reckoned the girl was just barely holding it together.

"Have you been standing here all day?"

"I do that on most days," Ana told her impassively, not moving a muscle. "When I don't have lessons. Sometimes even when I do."

"Raquel wanted me to bring you this," Martha said, trying to hand her the lemonade.

"Where are they?" Ana whispered, her lower lip quivering, tears starting to fall.

"They're just late, Ana."

"They're never late. They're like clockwork - every day at six. It's now seven fifteen."

"Well, there was a storm," Martha said. "Maybe they just got swept out a little farther, and it's taking them longer to get back."

Ana nodded vigourously, and swallowed hard. "Yes, yes, that's probably what's happening."

Martha approached the girl, and put her arms around her shoulders, in a comforting way. Ana seemed grateful, and rested her head against Martha's. Trouble was, Martha wasn't sure whom she was comforting, Ana, or herself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

After "perceiving" the message he felt might be intended for Miguel, the Doctor turned his back on the boat and began making his way up the dock, back into the village. There was no way he was getting on a rickety fishing boat with a man who had just been threatened by a disembodied consciousness, and he didn't need anyone trying to force him. He was muttering to himself, wishing he had the TARDIS. He searched his pockets for the sonic screwdriver, and did not find it. He couldn't remember if he'd left it on the night stand this morning when he'd got dressed, in his nervousness about going with Martha to assure her mother about their relationship, or whether it was a phenomenon related to this _thing_ that was putting them in weird, foreign scenarios like this one.

It didn't matter. What mattered is that he had none of his usual tools at his disposal, nothing to ID an energy signature the next time he heard or felt the non-voice.

So, he did the only thing he could think of to do: he went inside the nearest establishment, which turned out to be a tobacconist, and asked after the library.

* * *

Love transcends most things. When it's right, it will transcend all, including time, certainly space, even death. Martha knew this better than anyone, but it occurred to her more than once, as she and Ana waited for the lost fishing boat, that there came a point when one was just torturing oneself. She also had the distinct feeling that Ana would not see it this way, and indeed, when she had tried to coax her back to the house, the young girl had vehemently refused to go.

Fortunately, Martha spent no more than forty-five minutes tortured on the beach along with Ana, staring at the horizon with her heart pounding in her chest, terror rising as she remembered the violence of the afternoon's brief storm. Because, at about eight that evening, the Doctor found her and Ana, explaining that he had felt a bit ill just before cast-off this morning, and had decided not to board the boat today. Ana's face fell when she heard this, and Martha explained gently that said boat had not returned, and that seeing the Doctor had given Ana a false hope.

Martha held back gushing over how glad she was to see him alive, in deference to the girl, though, and just gave him a quick kiss, and pushed him up the shore about ten feet, and asked, "So, first of all, thank God you're safe... but what were you _really _doing? I know you weren't sick."

"I've been to two libraries, two rather labyrinthine book shops and one living room of an old man who claimed to know everything about the history of the village. Turned out to be a nutter."

"What were you looking for?"

"Legends, folk tales, ghost stories... anything that might tell me where that voice-that's-not-really-a-voice came from," he whispered, one eye on Ana.

"And?"

"_Nada_. Well, _nada_ that might explain this." He still kept one eye on Ana, and his eyebrows were uneven and intrigued.

"What? Why do you keep looking at her that way?"

"Because," the Doctor said. "I heard another message from the wafting thought this morning, just before the boat left, and I'm almost sure that it was aimed at Miguel. And it's the real reason why I didn't climb aboard."

"What did it say this time?"

"It said something like _you horrible fisherman, say goodbye to her because I won't share._"

Martha's eyebrows raised. "Oh!"

The Doctor lowered his voice to a whisper now. "And it came at a time when the two of them had just finished snogging up a firestorm, and were saying goodbye. I suppose I _could_ be wrong, but I doubt it."

"I doubt it, too," she whispered. "So, do you think it's like a dead lover, or former suitor of hers, or something?"

"I haven't ruled it out," he told her, gritting his teeth. "I just wish I could gather a sample from an energy stamp or something, 'cause the gumshoe rubbish got me nowhere."

The tide was coming in, and the Doctor and Martha stood for a few minutes and contemplated Ana. The water was now licking at her feet. For some reason, she decided to sit down in the sand, right where she was. Only then did she finally begin to cry. Within a minute, the water was at her waist, drifting in and out between the open sea and the shore. Her white satin dress was soaked from the waist down, and her face was red and streaked with tears.

"Ana, love, let's go back to the house," Martha coaxed, wading into the tide herself. "Your father will be worried sick."

"I'm not going. I am staying here until Miguel comes back," the girl protested through sobs. "I promised I would not leave the shore until he returned."

"It's dark," Martha offered. "And it's getting cold."

"The sea feels warm tonight," the girl said, suddenly calm.

And then she began to cry again. She buried her face between her arms and rested them on her knees and wept. From then on, there was no reaching her. Martha tried, the Doctor tried... no response. Just tight spasms of sobs that made it seem as though the young girl might explode from grief.

"Let's just leave her alone for a bit," the Doctor said softly, pulling Martha by the arm. "We can come back later and try again."

* * *

The two of them returned to the village, now completely asleep and deserted for the night, and went for the main street where the citizens came to run their errands during the day. Though they did not voice the thought, they both were aware that they had no idea where to go or what to do next. Martha would not be due back at the house until the following morning, and the Doctor, it seemed, was a free agent now that the boat had disappeared. Ana was not budging, and they weren't sure if either one of them had been provided with lodgings in this particular scenario. So they held hands and walked.

"This is weird," Martha mused, as they passed a jewellery maker's shop, and a woodcarver's. "I mean, I know it's not real, but it feels real to me... and yet it doesn't. I know it's one of those games, I know we've seen this before, but... I don't know."

"You can't understand why you still feel grief for Ana and Miguel, even though you know they're a fantasy?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Well, Martha, I would suspect that that is exactly what is expected of you," he told her, smiling at her slightly. "I feel for them too. And I feel for us, by extension. I think that we're being not-so-randomly thrown into this particular little village..."

"Wait, what just happened?" she asked.

They both stopped in their tracks in front of a bakery, and looked about in shock. They had not taken a turn, nor entered any shops nor done anything except walk hand-in-hand for a few minutes, and yet, everything had changed.

It was still just after eight in the evening, but they began to notice people out and about. The bakery sign was illuminated with blue neon lights, advertising fresh croissants in the morning and "American" coffee served until ten a.m. Behind them, the jewellery maker's was now a tee-shirt shop, and the wood carver's was now a currency exchange station. Across the street, they saw a Starbucks, a scenic ATV-beach-tour office, at least one automated cash machine and the unmistakably twenty-first-century marker of people texting as they walked.

"Have we been moved again?" she wanted to know.

"Only in time," the Doctor muttered. "Not in space. The village appears to be a tourist trap now."

"But... what's happened to Ana?"

"Dunno. I don't know what's happened to _us_, let alone to her."

"We have to go back to the beach!" she cried, tugging him back the way they had come.

* * *

"_Buenas noches, amigos_," said the young man in the straw hat. "You are just in time!"

The Doctor and Martha were standing on the beach, approximately where they had left Ana only minutes before. Except it now appeared that about ninety years had passed.

There was now a canvas booth with a breakdown counter set up, and behind it, a catamaran bobbed just offshore. A few people could be seen climbing aboard out of the waist-deep water, and a couple of other young men were already on the boat, helping them. The sign said "Intimate Dining Cruises," and the man in the straw hat stood just behind the counter.

"For what?" asked the Doctor.

"Our last dining cruise leaves at eight-thirty," the man explained. "We are serving Tilapia with mango sauce tonight - you'll love it. You have a private dining room with a view of course, your choice of wines, and an exquisite dessert."

"Oh," Martha said, blinking. "We're not here for that. Erm, do you know..."

"If you're not here for the last cruise, then get out of the way and let someone else go, would you?" asked a man from behind them. An overweight tourist pushed past them with his wife, and the Doctor and Martha stood aside, looking up and down the beach, marvelling at the mysterious, remarkably smooth time travel they had just achieved.

The tourist and his wife signed their names, and then waded out into the shallows to board the catamaran.

"Well, if you two aren't interested, then it's time to close up shop," the man said to them. "Unless you've changed your mind."

"No, but thank you," the Doctor told him.

They watched with some fascination as the man took down his sign, then broke down his counter and the canvas tent above, packed away his credit-card scanner and folded the whole thing into a camping pack. He slung it over his shoulders and bid them a polite good night.

What they hadn't noticed until the man began to walk up the beach back toward the village was that he had built his booth right on top of a boulder. It was about waist-high to Martha, and pure white and seemed to have the odd pale pink growth. It was shaped a little like a miniature Rock of Gibraltar, and had not been there in 1920 when the fishing boat disappeared.

"Wait, sir," Martha called out. "Er, where did this rock come from?"

As soon as she asked the question, she regretted it. It sounded daft. Where did _this rock_ come from? Where had _any rock_ come from?,

But the man smiled. "It's strange, isn't it?" He gestured with both arms up and down the beach, illustrating that it was a completely clear, sandy strand, except for this one strange blemish. On _this spot_. "It's called _Niña de Piedra._"

"Stone girl?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah," said the man. "Look, I'm not from around here, I just came here for the business opportunity - a couple of friends and I run this dining cruise thing. But I've heard the locals believe that this rock is actually a girl who turned to stone."

"Why did she do that?" the Doctor asked, barely moving his lips, looking at the man with scepticism.

"She stayed here waiting so long that she was covered with salt and coral, and... I don't know, was petrified or something."

"Waiting for what?" the Doctor asked, knowing the answer.

"Well," the man said, walking back toward them. "Near as I can tell, it was a lover. He was a fisherman, and he went out on his ship one morning, and there was a storm that afternoon, and he never came back."

"Oh my God," Martha groaned.

The man laughed. "The old ladies here swear that when there's a storm now, it's because of the lover, fighting to the death against the sea!" He delivered this revelation with some mocking glee.

"Thanks," the Doctor muttered, and the man waved at them and continued toward the village.

The two of them stood and stared at _Niña de Piedra_ in stunned silence.

"It can't be true, can it?" Martha whispered after a long, reverent pause. "It's impossible."

"This whole thing should have been impossible, Martha, and yet."

"And yet."


	6. Chapter 6

**So, remember at the beginning of the story when I said there's a spoiler that I would drop on you eventually, that the story has a "secret identity" that would be revealed? Well, in case you haven't already guessed it, here it is: this story is part of a series of silly music-related oneshots (though obviously it's much longer than a oneshot) that I've been writing over the past few years. In order, they are "Theatre of Nightmares," Jukebox of Regret," "Tracks of Emptiness," and "Notes of Revelation," leading up to this story.**

**The preceding four stories, if you have not read them, take the Doctor and Martha's relationship, and through a series of situation-appropriate songs, change the rapport from "canon" into something romantic. A family of eccentric aliens bring about the conflict (except for in the latter), and initially make themselves very known. I did not want to tell you this right away for fear that it would spoil the game. But I think it's safe now.**

**Therefore, to my lovely reader who informed me that she's been growing attached to Ana and Miguel, I'm truly sorry to do this to you. But as you will soon learn, I cannot take credit for their wonderful, tragic story anyhow. We will revisit their part of the saga soon enough, however...**

**Oh, and this chapter gets just a bit vulgar. I apologize for the mish-mash of American/British trash talk. I figure, none of it is real anyway, and these people aren't speaking English no matter how you look at it. :-)**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

In a moment of silence on a beach in Spain, the Doctor and Martha were compressed and transported once again.

This time, when they were spat back out into the multicultural festival in Chicago, the Doctor said, "Martha, we need to discuss this before it happens again. We both know what's causing this."

"Yeah, but what do we do about it?" she asked. "We met Ramechac, and S'Dromer and Essed'iv, but it's not like they all have the same M.O. I mean we've both been whisked in and out of fantasy scenarios alone, but never together, and never this elaborate! And then one of them just wanted our voices gone so we couldn't communicate. One of them brings nightmares, one wanted to foster regret, and the other feeds on human misery. It's all rather random to me. Plus, it doesn't stop until _they say_ it stops."

"Wrong. That was only true the first time. The second time, it stopped when I realised what they wanted me to realise, and the third time, it stopped when _we won_, remember?"

"So, how do we win again?"

"We have to think... what do they all have in common, the three aliens?"

"Well, for a start, they're family. They didn't like us mucking about with their brothers and sisters... not that we did," she pointed out.

"True. In the past, that's always been a factor. What else?"

"They tried to kill us both."

"Do you think?" he asked, almost a questioning grunt.

"Yes! They put us right in the line of fire between the Americans and the Brits... on American soil, during slavery, when they knew the Americans were going to win! And, it was going to try to drown you on that ship... hey, maybe the voice you heard was one of them, one of the aliens!"

"No, that's too easy. If the same family of aliens are messing with us, they'll take credit for it," the Doctor reasoned. "Plus, we've heard the alien's voice, and it's not a wispy thought. It's an all-too-obvious emcee... don't you think?

"Okay, what else? Well, they seem to want to torment us. I guess that goes without saying..."

"Yes, that's true, too," the Doctor agreed, and then his face lit up. "But Martha, I just realised, we've been missing something big!"

She basically ignored him, in favour of the idea that aliens are interested in their anguish. "Ugh! What the hell do they want this time? What do they want to torment us with? Just bring it on!" she shouted at the sky. "Quit giving us these cryptic... fantasies, worlds, whatever they are!"

"Martha, don't forget, the other thing they do is..."

He was interrupted by a familiar voice over the speakers, as a sweeping symphonic song came to an end. "This is Vance Ray once again, bringing you meeeew-sical stylings from around the world! Hope you all enjoyed Mario Frangoulis, the Greek sensation crooning a tear-jerker _en Español_. If there's one thing that we can say, though, ladies, is that at least the unfortunate Ana had someone who loved her in return. I think we can all be glad of that, am I right? No one wants to be pathetically chasing after some guy, making a fool of herself. Well, not all of us can relate to that, but some of us can, _can't we_?"

His tone was so pointed, there was no mistaking it. The Doctor and Martha looked at each other in recognition. Their relationship was still new, and the sting of the past two years unrequited was still alive and well in Martha. Insecurity and fear would be plaguing her now, and these damned aliens knew it.

"So, speaking of Spain," Vance Ray, whose name, the travellers felt sure was not really _Vance Ray_, continued. "This next little ditty takes place in Costa Brava, but it's about a little lovelorn French girl, and the language... _eh bien_, _zee langwish speaks for eetself, non?"_

* * *

The Doctor was not surprised to have been whisked away once again, and he landed in a crowded room, filled with live flamenco music, and people drinking and dancing. It looked like, perhaps, 1935 or so, and what passed at the time for a night club.

He looked about and saw an inordinate number of beautiful, slim, tall, dark-haired girls dancing with swarthy, smooth _caballeros_. He saw walls painted dark red, and the girls' dresses were, for the most part, chosen to match. He noticed that several of the girls were dancing with their black lace fans in their hands, sometimes coquettishly placed in front of their faces, and he had to admit, the effect was rather titillating.

What he didn't see when he looked about was Martha.

He began to scan the crowd for her, cursing the fact that all of the women here were so tall, and Martha, at five-foot-two, would not exactly stand out in this crowd. It occurred to him that because this was some kind of musical fantasy scenario, one of the "points" of this experience was the statuesque consistency of the ladies.

"_Hóla, señor,"_ a voice said. He looked to his left and a girl stood within arm's length, smiling up at him.

She had a peculiar accent, and was markedly different from the other girls in the room. That is to say, she was shorter, plumper and plainer. She wore a red dress like the others, but it had a dowdy boat-neck instead of the provocative Spanish bodice, and her hair was awkwardly curled around her ears, rather than swept up into a tight bun. She was not unattractive, exactly, but given the setting, and the fantastical nature of it all, the Doctor wasn't sure what she was doing there.

But, he had bigger things on his mind at the moment.

"Erm, hello," he said to her distractedly, just before going back to scanning the crowd for Martha.

"My name is Irénée," she told him.

"Hi, Irénée," he replied, again, distracted.

"I'm from Vendée," she said, her smile straining. "That's in France. Just on the other side of the Pyrenees."

Ah - that explained her accent. "Yeah, I've been there," he told her. "Nice town."

"It's all right. I came here because I love Spain so much," she continued. "Especially... well..."

She was batting her medium-sized eyelashes at him, attempting to be coy, trying to get him to ask her what she meant, what else does she love so much. But the Doctor was thoroughly set on finding Martha. While Irénée had been talking, it had occurred to him that perhaps Martha was, again, a member of the serving staff. The alien foe seemed to be keen on putting Martha in a position of subjugation.

Irénée wouldn't have it, though. She jumped in front of him as he made his way toward the service door.

"Let's dance," she said. She took him by the hands and dragged him onto a shiny, crowded parquet dance floor.

If the Doctor had been paying attention, he would have noticed that Irénée's heavy feet hit the floor like a ton of bricks, and she danced with a _clippity-clop_ like an untrained, angry Clydesdale. He also might have noticed the sniggers of people around them, watching the ungraceful gait of the strange French girl who had roped in yet another unwilling _caballero._

He also might have noticed the desperation in her eyes, the crazed anger growing steadily hotter the longer he scanned the room instead of engaging with her.

But the Doctor was preoccupied, and he did not, in fact, notice. In fact, he barely noticed that he had been moved to a dance floor at all.

"Excuse me, am I boring you?" she asked, frowning, rage rising in her voice. She stood still now, her giant feet turned outward from one another, her hands on her ample hips.

"What? Erm, no, no," he said, though he was not making much of an attempt to be reassuring. "I'm looking for someone."

"Of course you are. Someone taller, darker, more Andalusian, perhaps?"

"No, someone specific, actually..."

_"Basta!"_ she screamed at him. "Enough!"

The Doctor was taken aback, surprised by her sudden loudness. He had not picked up on the strained smile and the growing agitation as she had pursued him over the past few minutes. In fact, he hadn't particularly picked up on her flirtation at all.

"Whoa," he said, disarmed, his hands out in a defensive posture, his face now lit with surprise. "Calm down."

"You insensitive lout!" she hollered. "How could you treat me like that, and then tell me to _calm down_?"

He stood, motionless, still in shock.

"Always looking over me, around me, through me... anywhere but _at _me. Always looking for someone else, someone else. Well, I have news for you, but _someone else_ is not here! I am here! I am here, I am now, and I am willing to dance. I am just asking for a bit of attention - is that so damn difficult? Am I _that _unappealing?"

Even though he knew it might well enrage her further, he decided to ask, "Sorry, have we met before tonight?"

"No, but does it matter? You think I'm a joke!" She turned to the crowd. "You all think I'm a goddamn joke! How dare you? Just who the hell do you arseholes think you are?"

A few people around had now turned their attention to Irénée, but had not stopped dancing. This state of affairs was wholly unacceptable to her, and she let out a great cry of rage, and ran into one of the men nearby. She pushed him away from his beautiful dance partner, toppling him, and three others in the process.

At this, the musicians stopped their song and turned to gawking at the commotion. Now she had everyone's attention.

"You all come in here every night with your beautiful smiles and your beautiful dresses and the front of your trousers packed with balled-up socks, and you act like your shit doesn't stink," she shouted at them. They had cleared a circle in the middle of the dance floor for her. She took a running start and charged into one of the girls on the edge. "Especially you, _Paulina Maria Josefina del Toro_!" She said the girl's name with a mocking sweetness, and the girl went over backwards, clinging to her date, and taking him with her. Another girl lost her balance as a result, and she went down too, landing under a table.

Irénée stood with her hands on her hips and one heavy toe tapping over Paulina. "You tell me I dance like a horse! Well, I never asked you what you thought of my dancing, so where do you get off? Especially since you yourself dance like your knees are made of rubber. Maybe if you ever had those knees together or your feet on the floor, you'd know how to lock-step properly!"

There was an audible "Ooh," coming from the crowd.

She turned to another girl, and bashed into her with both hands to the girl's shoulders. The girl's bottom hit the floor with a _thud _and three men stooped to try and help her up. "And you, _Teresa Sofia Liliana Emilia Blah-blibbity-blah,_" Irénée continued. "I heard you when you said my hips were wide enough to birth a full-grown sow. Well, do you want to have a conversation about birthing hips, darling? Because your loud-mouthed cow of a mother told my house matron that you're knocked-up with _either _Manuel Vega or Antonio Marascón's kid. Or, it could be Hector Rivera's. You're not sure which one it is, because you fucked all three of them at the same party, the one at Tomás Cuberto's house six weeks ago. Anyway, it doesn't matter because you're planning on telling the whole town that one of those Romanian transients raped you, to get sympathy and a few donations. You're a classy, _classy_ girl, aren't you, Teresa?"

Teresa, for her part, flushed beet red, and covered her mouth and nose with her hand. It was noted by everyone, however, that she did not deny the French girl's allegations. Two men in the room very noticeably bristled, and the Doctor assumed they were two out of the trio of Vega, Marascón and Rivera. Clearly, the women scowling at them were heretofore unaware of Teresa's exploits with them.

She looked around at the crowd again, circled a few times, shoving random people, though not hard enough to topple anyone now. Everyone in the room, the Doctor included, watched her with wide eyes.

"And you, Juan-Carlos. And you, Martín. And you, Fernando. You men!" she said to the room. "_This_ is what you like? A bunch of identical, five-foot-seven twigs with hair, who dance like clockwork soldiers? And the only thing they have to talk about is how _gauche_ everyone else is! Unimaginative whores with beet-red lips for sucking - that's all you need, is it? Well, fine. I can't believe I hopped on a boat for this! Spent every goddamn penny I ever earned just to live here with you bunch of losers. What a waste. So sue me if I'm short! Tar me and feather me because I, like a real woman, have some meat on my hips! And throw me off a fucking cliff because I'm a good, nice girl who doesn't just spread her legs for every swarthy jackass with a hard cock and a swagger! If that's what it takes to be one of you, I'll just join the convent, thanks. If all that make me boring, then, well..."

She turned, and very pointedly faced the Doctor. She repeated her speech to him. "Always looking over me, around me, through me... anywhere but _at _me. Always looking for someone else, someone else. Well, I have news for you, but _someone else_ is not here! I am here! I am here, I am now, and I am willing to dance. I am just asking for a bit of attention - is that so damn difficult?"

"No, it's not, Irénée," he admitted. He walked forward and went toe-to-toe with her. "And if you are the one who has been sent to give me a message, then... message received."

Her face twisted into disbelief. "What the hell are you on about?"

After a pause he let out his own cry of frustration and turned on his heel. He pushed through the crowd toward a doorway that looked like it led into a corridor.

"Okay!" he shouted when he got into the hallway. "I get it! The woman just wants a bit of attention and I'm too busy looking for someone else in a place where she doesn't exist anymore! Hit me over the head with it, why don't you?"

He paced up and down the hall.

"And by the way," he added, still shouting at no-one. "You're a right idiot, you know that? Because I got that particular message a while back! Yeah, it was your brother or your sister, or some androgynous combination thereof, who showed me the light, helped me see the error of my ways! Martha's a wonderful woman, and just wants me to see her... got it. I see her. Been seeing quite a lot of her lately, thanks, so _let me out of here!_"

"Oi, who you talking to?" asked a voice from behind him.

"Oh," the Doctor sighed, rounding on the man. "No-one. Just... I guess it's been a rough evening."

"How so?" the man asked, heading for the gents'.

"What, did you just get here?"

"Yeah, walked in about thirty seconds ago," said the man. "I assume something happened... saw them setting chairs back up and dusting off the pretty girls."

"That girl... Irénée, is it?"

"Yeah, what about her?"

"Well, what's her story, exactly?"

The man smiled. "When she first came to town, she told the bartender (which is a mistake in and of itself 'cause that guy has a huge mouth) that ever since she was small, she's dreamt of being romanced by a Spaniard. I guess she's a Spain-phile, if there is such a thing. So she got on a boat and came here... unlucky creature. She picked one hell of a vile town to try and find a true Spanish gentleman. Nothing like that exists in this place."

The Doctor's eyebrows went up. He was surprised at this statement because the man's appearance was more or less exactly like that of the other _caballeros_ in the dance hall. Tall, thin, swarthy, white embroidered shirt, black trousers, a confident gait. Handsome, to be sure, and carrying the trappings of a gentleman, but not particularly interesting. Except now, the Doctor noticed an air of awareness in the man's eyes, something more than just the knowledge of how beautiful and powerful he was. There was compassion there, and something that transcended the prettiness of this fantasy somehow.

At this, yet another voice interrupted. "Oi, Marascón. You answer for yourself now."

The Doctor turned to find another man, mightily pissed off, holding what looked to be a lead pipe in his hand. The Doctor looked back and forth at both men, utter confusion plaguing his features. After a few glances, he realised that the newcomer was staring straight at him.

"Case in point," said the man on his way into the loo, with a smirk. "My friend, if I were you, I would run for my life."


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, I promise I'm not just messing with you...**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

The experience of watching someone get compressed into a flat line and then seemingly blip out of existence was not as weird as having it happen to oneself - but very nearly. Especially considering the number of people standing about who must have been looking straight at it, and who did not react in the slightest.

There was an initial shock, and then for a few moments, Martha felt a surge of panic.

But she talked herself down. Yes, the Doctor was gone, again lost in some death-defying fantasy. Inaccessible, no communication, no TARDIS, no reality, and yes, there was a malevolent alien possibly trying to elaborately murder him. But the two of them had always got out of these jams before, and if there was ever anyone capable of wiggling away from this sort of threat, it was he. Very likely, she had not long to wait before he'd be unceremoniously thrown back into the festival.

So, she swallowed down a big ball of fear, and thought about what to do next.

It would do no-one any good for her to stand about waiting for him to come back, especially when she now thought she understood at least what the game was, if not how to play nor how to win. So, she decided to borrow a page from the Doctor's book. She went inside the TARDIS, scribbled a note, and taped it to the police box's door.

Meanwhile, in the festival air around her, a Spanish-tinged song played in French...

* * *

The Doctor stood between two men in a narrow hallway, one very calm and on his way to use the gents', the other quite brassed-off and presumably looking to crack some skulls.

Or, more accurately, one skull. His.

The angry man had demanded that Marascón answer for himself at once, and then stared at the Doctor. _Fantastic, _he thought. _I'm another character in another bloody melodrama. _Only this time, he hadn't been given enough information to steer clear of the danger before it found him. Thinking fast, he realised that Irénée had cited Antonio Marascón as one of the possible fathers of Teresa's unborn child. One of the _three_ men who had apparently all been quite friendly with Teresa, all in the same night, at some party six weeks ago.

The man in the doorway of the loo laughed once again and said to the Doctor, "Too late, _amigo. _Your lifestyle finally caught up with you. Best notify your next of kin."

"Shut up, Ramón," said the angry man. "This is none of your concern."

Ramón gave a whimsical salute. "You got it, Rico. Try not to let him suffer too long, okay?" And he disappeared into the gents'.

"Rico," the Doctor began, in what he hoped would be one of his epic (but successful) attempts at talking his way out of trouble. "Now, I know what you think I did, and we can work something out."

"What I _think_ you did?" asked Rico, seeming to be completely insulted by the word _think_. "How about, what I _know_ you did. Teresa told me everything, not two minutes ago. Man, how could you do this to me?"

"Well, I wish I had a good answer for that," the Doctor vamped, though he was being honest. "But, if you really think about it..."

"Shut your filthy mouth," Rico commanded. And he held the lead pipe like a cricket bat. "You knock up my sister, I knock off your head!" And he swung.

The Doctor ducked just in the nick of time, and the pipe hit the wall. Wooden shards went flying every which way, and a few people who had been on the other side of the wall cried out or gasped in surprise.

"I didn't knock up your sister!" the Doctor shouted. "I mean... it could have been one of the other two! What about them?"

Rico straightened a bit, and his demeanour changed into that of a serious older brother. "They are vulgar idiots and are to be pitied because they never had any class , ever, and I will deal with my sister later, concerning letting herself get screwed by those losers."

"Okay, but..."

"But... Antonio. Please. Neither of them is my _compadre_," Rico answered, a bit of pathos in his voice. "Neither of them made an oath with me when we were children that we would always protect each other, and each others' families."

"Oh. Now, I _really_ have no answer for that."

Rico was showing some real sadness now. "I would _never _betray you like that. I would always stand up for you and yours, no matter the cost. So you see how it doesn't matter if you're the father of Teresa's baby or not? You knew what she was up to, what kind of bullshit she'd got herself into. You saw her at that party with Vega and Rivera, and instead of cutting off their dicks, you think, _easy pickings,_ and you go in there and..." He sighed with disgust, unable to finish that horrible thought.

The Doctor tried to speak, but alas, he had no words. If Marascón really had done the things that Rico had said, then, a perverted sense of justice or not, he really couldn't say for sure that Rico wasn't justified in his actions.

Though when Rico wound up to swing again, the Doctor dodged. A sign on the wall fell from the nail holding it in place, and hit the ground with a metal clatter. Marascón, such as he was, was a nasty piece of work, but he, the Doctor, was not actually him, and was not willing to die for his sins.

In his maneuvering, he had suddenly found himself between Rico and the dance floor. The festivities were just getting underway again, and people were recommencing their flamenco. The Doctor stumbled onto the parquet and turned back to face his attacker. Uncaring, Rico swung once more, and half a dozen people ducked and gasped in response. Again, the musicians stopped to watch the commotion, and the room once more began to gawk.

The Doctor tried to talk, tried to reason, a few people tried to pull Rico away by taking him round the torso from behind, but to no avail. The man was furious, and was determined that vengeance upon his sister's honour would be his.

The Doctor weighed his options. There was no Martha here, at least not that he could see; he didn't figure he could count on her bailing him out of this scenario. Again, there was no sonic, no TARDIS, and no reasoning with Rico. He cast about the room for exits, resources, ideas. Ramón had seemed like a level-headed bloke, but he was nowhere to be seen at the moment. Teresa might well object to his killing, but when the Doctor spotted her, she was crying on the shoulder of another identical-looking girl, and not looking at what was happening at all.

He sighed inwardly, and panicked a bit as well. He knew he shouldn't be surprised, though; he had seen that there were very few people of true integrity in this setting. And then his eyes locked upon another pair of eyes, a pair of surprisingly aware, intelligent and incisive eyes. These were qualities he had not noticed before, because he had been looking for his Companion in the crowd. He reckoned they were qualities no-one had ever noticed because they had been looking for other things... much less important things. Irénée, despite the way she had been treated since she had arrived in this town, was still here, and in spite of the evening's events, was still lingering in the club. She was standing quietly against the wall, watching the proceedings... almost as if she was waiting to see the fall-out from what she had said to and about Teresa.

_She's it_, the Doctor thought. _She's my only hope_.

He didn't have to try too hard. He knew his eyes must be in frantic-mode, silently begging for help whether he wanted them to or not. From what little he knew of the French girl, he didn't think she would be able to resist the genuine distress of another, especially if she felt it was her own fault.

Surely enough, she registered his supplication. She steeled her lips together with determination, stepped forward, shoving a few chairs out of the way.

Rico took a swing-stance again with the pipe, and let out an angry, _banzai_-like cry. He was interrupted, though, by a higher-pitched cry, and a flash of boat-necked red dress suddenly careening into his path. He had to work hard to slow down his strike, and wound up only nudging Irénée in the shoulder as he threw his whole body into preventing her being hit in the head.

Rico righted himself, and then asked, "What the hell are you doing, _Francesa?_ Get out of my way!"

Irénée stood steadfast, hands on hips, while the Doctor gathered his faculties behind her. He stood up straight and adjusted his jacket.

"No," she protested flatly. Then she spoke to him as a mother would to a shortsighted teen. "Would you pull yourself together, Rico? For the love of God, do you really want to kill this man?"

"He needs to die," Rico growled. "He has dishonoured my family."

She threw up her hands. "Well, if we use _your_ criteria for what merits a lead pipe to the head, then the whole town of Costa Brava deserves to be killed!"

Rico brandished the weapon again. "Stand aside, girl."

"No way. If you're going to kill this man..." she turned to the Doctor. "Marascón, is it? Since you couldn't be arsed to tell me your name even after I had politely introduced myself."

The Doctor nodded.

"If you're going to kill him, you'll have to get past me," she told Rico.

Rico laughed. "You really think I cannot beat you?"

"I think you can. But I think you won't."

Rico again wound up as if to swing, and for a split second, his face was filled with just enough rage, it looked like he might actually fell the French girl just to get to the unfortunate Marascón. But then he lost his nerve.

He let out a harsh breath. "Damn it, girl." He threw the lead pipe to the floor.

"My name is Irénée!" she said, stomping her foot. "Not Girl, not _Francesa, _not Hey You, not..."

And then she seemed to lose her impetus right there.

"You know what? This is so not worth it," she cried, throwing up her hands. Once again, she turned to the Doctor. "If I were you, I'd get out of town, _amigo_, and never come back. Because if this jackass doesn't kill you, Teresa will rope you into getting married, now that everyone knows the story. Do you want your whole personal history rewritten?"

"No, wouldn't want that," the Doctor answered sardonically.

She looked at the floor for a second. "Look, I'm sorry I almost got you killed."

"It's all right. I reckon I deserved it."

"No," she said softly. "No, you didn't."

Rico huffed and puffed, and turned, leaving the club a dishevelled mess. The Doctor was somewhat surprised that he didn't exit with some sort of bravado about how he'd forget to restrain himself should Marascón ever come near him or his sister again. Perhaps Rico felt it was implied.

Irénée turned also, and began to make her way toward the door.

"Excuse me," a voice said. It made the Doctor turn, but the voice wasn't speaking to him.

It was Ramón, reaching out to Irénée. She turned and looked up at him with sadness in her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he wanted to know. "I mean, I saw what you just did... must have been tough."

"It was the least I could do," she murmured, never taking her eyes from Ramón's.

"But weren't you scared?" he asked.

"Yes," she admitted. "But I cannot have a man's death on my conscience."

"No," Ramón agreed, with a soft smile. "You couldn't. Can I get you a drink?"

"Me?"

He laughed. "Of course, you. Who else am I talking to?"

The Doctor watched, surprised, but again, he wasn't sure why, as Irénée left the parquet floor with perhaps the only man in Costa Brava even remotely worthy of her.

* * *

And when the Doctor was spat back out in Chicago again, instinctively, he cast about once more for Martha. But this time, the crowd was made up of thousands, not dozens, and she would stand out even _less _in this crowd than the last.

He began to make his way the hundred metres or so to the TARDIS, thinking she may have come back there to wait for him, assuming she wasn't pulled into her own scenario.

And on the TARDIS door, there was a note taped to the blue paint. "Gone to the public library to find Ana and Miguel. Smooches - MJ."


	8. Chapter 8

**You are about to see why I cannot properly take any credit for the story of Ana and Miguel. :-)**

* * *

**Chapter 8**

He found her in the back of the library at a cluster of computers, staring at a screen with giant black leather earphones over her head, lost in thought. Suddenly, she wrote something down frantically, scratching at the paper as quickly as she could. As he got closer, he could see a squiggly line floating on the screen, indicating that she was listening to music.

He touched her shoulder, trying not to startle her. He did not succeed.

"Oh!" she exclaimed with a start, and then pressed her mouth shut gently with the tips of her fingers. She whispered, "You're back!" She stood up and gave him a hug.

"Indeed," he murmured. "But not without considerable effort not to die. Well, I had some help..."

She ripped the headphones off her head and stood aside. "Sit down," she demanded. "Listen to this song. It's called _Naturaleza Muerta_. It means literally _natural death, _but is an expression that refers to a still life painting. Almost a play on words."

He took the headphones and sat down, without a word. "Did you find them?" he asked. "Ana and Miguel?"

"I did," she said, and she showed him the piece of paper she had been writing on. "My Spanish is super-rusty, but I think this is them. And I _may_ have figured out where that voice was coming from, the voice you heard that made you not want to get on that fishing boat."

"Really? What the hell was it?" he asked, going for her paper.

"No, no, I want you to listen, unbiased," she protested, pulling the paper behind her back. "I might be wrong. Again, my Spanish is not so good anymore. Speaking of which, why aren't the TARDIS' translation circuits working on me?"

The Doctor looked at the wall at a spot beyond her, in thought. "Hm. I'm not sure. Perhaps because it's artificial, the recording? Because it's music? An art form meant to be intact in a certain type of cohesion? Because we're being messed-with? I'll ask her later."

"I thought it might be because I was out of touch with you."

"You don't need me in order to commune with her," he assured her. "You do that on your own, whether you can feel it or not."

"Okay. Well, meanwhile, I'm struggling with this... but you can tell me for sure." She grabbed another chair and sat down beside him to wait.

The Doctor re-set the song she had been listening to, in order to hear it from the beginning. He recognised the intro as a song they had heard out in the festival a little while ago. Though, it seemed to them as though it had been days.

A man's clear, baritone voice filled his ears, someone whom Vance Ray had said was Greek, but was singing in Spanish.

_No ha salido el sol, y Ana y Miguel ya prenden llama,_

_Ella sobre él, hombre y mujer deshacen la cama._

_Y el mar, que está loco por Ana, prefiere no mirar._

_Los celos no perdonan al agua, ni a las algas, ni a la sal._

_Al amanecer, ya está Miguel sobre su barca._

_"Dame un beso, amor, y espera quieta, junto a la playa."_

_Y el mar murmura en su lenguaje, "Maldito pescador,_

_Despídete de ella. No quiero compartir su corazón!"_

_Y llorar, y llorar, y llorar por él..._

_Y esperar, y esperar, y esperar de pie_

_En la orilla que vuelva Miguel..._

_Dicen en la aldea que esa roca blanca es Ana,_

_Cubierta de sal y de coral - espera en la playa._

_No esperes más, Niña de Piedra, Miguel no va a volver._

_El mar le tiene preso por no querer cederle una mujer._

_Y llorar, y llorar, y llorar por él..._

_Y esperar, y esperar, y esperar de pie_

_En la orilla que vuelva Miguel..._

_Incluso hay gente que asegura que cuándo hay tempestad,_

_Las olas, las provoca Miguel, luchando a muerte con el mar._

The chorus repeated... _Y llorar, y llorar, y llorar por él..._ and the Doctor waited until the music was over before removing the headphones and laying them on the desk.

He turned and faced Martha, leaning forward, elbows on knees. "Give me what you've got," he told her.

She looked at her sheet, and began to recite:

_"The sun has not come out, and Ana and Miguel are now catching fire. Her on him, man and woman, undoing the bed. And the sea who is crazy for Ana prefers not to look. The heavens do not forgive water nor algae nor salt._

_"At dawn, now Miguel is on his boat. 'Give me a kiss, love, and wait patiently beside the beach.' And the sea whispers in its own language, 'Wretched fisherman,say goodbye to her. I don't want to share her heart!'_

_"And cry, and cry, and cry for him... And wait, and wait, and wait standing on the shore for Miguel to return..._

_"They say in the village that that white rock is Ana covered in salt and coral - she's waiting on the beach. Wait no more, Stone Girl, Miguel won't return. The sea is keeping him close for not wanting to give up a woman._

_"And cry, and cry, and cry for him... And wait, and wait, and wait standing on the shore for Miguel to return..._

_"There are people who swear that when there is a storm, the waves, Miguel provoques them, fighting to the death with the sea!"_

She raised her eyes and looked at the Doctor for approval.

He paused, and said, "I thought you said your Spanish was rusty."

"It is. Do I have it right?"

"You know you do," he smirked.

"You _were_ hearing the voice of the sea?" she asked, amazed.

"So it would seem."

"And this explains being swept forward in time, just to talk to that guy with the beach kiosk," she commented, remembering the experience. "So he could tell us about the 'legend' of Ana and Miguel and the Stone Girl."

The Doctor stared off into the distance. "And why Ana felt the sea was warm, after Miguel was gone. The sea was trying to be her lover. Or something."

"Blimey," she breathed. "That's even weirder than the thing about the alligator."

"Alligator?"

"Yeah," she said, suddenly, it seemed, coming to from a reverie. She pulled the keyboard toward her, and with a few keystrokes, changed the song that was ready to play on the screen. "Listen to this one."

With that, the Doctor heard, again, a familiar intro, one they had heard in the festival not too long before. It was someone playing the banjo rather skilfully, and the recording quality sounded like it had been made in the 1950's or 60's. The singer was clearly from somewhere in the American South, and his voice was nasal, whimsical and pleasant.

_In 1814, we took a little trip_

_Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip'_

_We took a little bacon and we took a little beans_

_And we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans._

_We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin',_

_There wasn't as many as there was a while ago._

_We fired once more, and they began a-runnin',_

_On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico._

_We looked down the river and we see'd the British come,_

_And there must have been a hundred of them, beating on a drum._

_They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring,_

_While we stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing._

_We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin',_

_There wasn't as many as there was a while ago._

_We fired once more, and they began a-runnin',_

_On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico._

_Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise_

_If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eyes._

_We held our fire 'til we see'd their faces well,_

_Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em... well,_

_We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin',_

_There wasn't as many as there was a while ago._

_We fired once more, and they began a-runnin',_

_On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico._

_Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles,_

_And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go,_

_They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em_

_On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico._

_We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down,_

_So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round._

_We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind,_

_And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind._

_We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin',_

_There wasn't as many as there was a while ago._

_We fired once more, and they began a-runnin',_

_On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico..._

The Doctor took off the headphones, and rather chuckled.

"Sound familiar?" asked Martha.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor told her. "See, I told you the historical events in that scene didn't much matter. That song was written right after World War II, when pro-American hoopla was at its peak."

"So, is the alien trying to kill us, or just mess with our lives, by putting us in these songs?" she wanted to know.

"Why choose?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye. "Go for both! Although looking at these songs now objectively, I know I've had my doubts, but I'd suspect that the killing is the principal objective. _The Battle of New Orleans_ doesn't discuss anything about two random Brits who happen onto the scene and nearly foul up the whole operation. We were thrown in there on purpose, added expressly in the most heinous, dangerous way, by the alien. And in _Naturaleza Muerta_, there is nothing about friends of Ana and Miguel. We were thrown into that one - or at least I was - to be in the line of fire of the sea."

"But... why?" she whined.

"Shh," he reminded her. "It's a library. I would suspect vengeance."

"For what? For winning over the siblings the last three times?"

"Yep," the Doctor said. "We escaped from all three - from Ramechac, from S'Dromer, and especially from Essed'Iv, all intact and unscathed. And, in love. All the better for it, wouldn't you say?"

She smiled and blushed a bit. "Yes, I would."

"Well, you said yourself, they're not keen on us getting our way with members of the family."

"So one of the siblings wants us dead, just for dishonouring a sister, or whatever?"

"Probably," the Doctor agreed. "Which reminds me... do you want to know where I was, just now?"

"Oh yeah," she sang. "I'd forgotten. Where were you?"

He turned toward the computer once again, and opened up a Google search. "Well, let's find out."

* * *

**Note: __****Naturaleza**** Muerta** **by Mario Frangoulis and _The Battle of New Orleans _by Johnny Horton are both available on iTunes! Check 'em out - the former is gorgeous, the latter is fun!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"I think I've got it," he said, pulling up the mp3 of a new song. "I mean, the song is called _Irénée, _and it takes place in Costa Brava - what are the odds this isn't it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You soon will. How's your French?"

"Also rusty, but not as bad as my Spanish."

"Here we go," he sighed, hitting _play_. A flamenco guitar began to play a gentle tango-like beat, and a whiny woodwind instrument came in moments later to give the song a fleshy flair. Then, a light, airy woman's voice began to sing a Spanish-tinged melody, in French.

_Elle s'appelait Irénée, elle était envoûtée  
Par le charme hidalgo, les castagnettes et le tango  
Son souhait le plus ardent, de prendre pour amant  
Un beau _caballero_, un vrai, tout en chair et en os_

_AÏ, aï, Irénée, pourquoi n'es-tu pas née_  
_En pays latin, plutôt qu'en pleine Vendée_  
_Aï, Aaï, _qué dolor_, de n'avoir pas le corps  
Des andalouses, que l'on jalouse et qu'on adore  
C'est pourquoi, pas à pas, elle envia les appâts  
Qu'elle n'avait pourtant pas, aï, aï, quelle déception!_

_Consumée par sa passion elle tenait toujours bon_  
_Dansant le flamenco sur son parquet à coup d'sabots_  
_Mais un jour, n'y tenant plus elle reprit le dessus_  
_En bateau s'embarqua direction la Costa Brava_

_Aï, je suis folle de voir tant d'espagnols!__  
Criait l'hystérique en Péninsule Ibérique  
Mais l'allégresse fit place à la détresse  
Quand dans un bal, elle découvrit l'ampleur du mal  
Les madones endiablées se raillaient d'Irénée  
Car tous les espagnols la trouvaient mollassonne!_

_Tel un taureau dans l'arène fonçant sur tout c'qui bouge_  
_Irénée hors d'haleine, furieuse, finit par y voir rouge_  
_Saisissant les éventails, les cheveux en bataille,_  
_Irénée frappait fort, avec la grâce d'un matador_

Mé qué, mé qué qué_, mais quelle mouche l'a piquée!__  
Bégayaient ainsi les conchitas qu'on tapait  
Aï, _ay caramba, mama, qué corrida!  
_Bissaient les gars qui, ma foi, n'en revenaient pas  
D'assister à ceci, tout ça sans sourciller  
Se gardant bien d'y mettre le holà, olé!_

_C'est donc en perdant la tête qu'Irénée fit la conquête_  
_De la population mais surtout d'un certain Ramon_  
_Quant au bellâtre, elle eût dit, "Oui, tu es le mâle de ma vie."_  
_Elle en profita aussi pour avoir le mal du pays_

_Aï, je voudrais tant revoir ma Vendée_  
_Aï, mon Ramon ramène-moi si tu es un homme_

_Le pauvre gars, ma foi, n'eût pas le choix  
Avec Irénée franchit donc les Pyrénées  
Et voilà, qu'en Vendée, l'on se vante,à tout va  
D'avoir tous les soirs de la s'maine une _corrida_ chez soi_

The Doctor smiled at key parts of the song, but Martha found the lyrics complex, the vocabulary broad and the song too quick to be completely understood on the first hearing. On the second hearing, she used the back of the sheet of paper she had been writing on to jot down the lyrics in English as she understood them, and it took a third listen to get it down cold. The Doctor encouraged her to read out what she had gleaned from it.

_"Her name was Irénée, she was captivated by gentlemanly charm, castanets and the tango. Her most ardent wish was to take as a lover a handsome caballero- a real one, all in flesh and bone Oh, oh, Irénée, why were you not born In Latin country instead of in the middle of Vendée? Oh, oh, what pain not to have the body of the Andalucian girls that they lust for and adore! This is why, step by step, she envied the bait, although she didn't have it, oh, oh, what a disappointment!"_

"Right," said the Doctor. "Someone told me that when Irénée first came to town, she told some bartender that she had always wanted to live in Spain with a Spanish lover. And Irénée herself told me she was from Vendée, and any idiot could tell that she felt bitter about not looking like all the other girls."

"So you actually met Irénée?"

"In the flesh," said the Doctor. "Well, more or less. Keep reading."

_"Consumed by her passion, she always held onto her goodness while dancing the flamenco on the parquet, with steps like hooves. But one day, not holding on anymore, she took the upper hand, and on a boat embarked in the direction of Costa Brava. 'Oh, I'm crazy about seeing so many Spaniards!' cried the hysterical girl on the Iberian Peninsula."_

"This is a decision she would come to regret," the Doctor commented.

_"But her vigor found its place in distress, when, at a ball, she discovered the magnitude of evil. The innocent little devil girls were mocking Irénée, for all the Spaniards found her tedious."_

"Yeah, so she pines for a life in Spain, gets on a boat and goes there, only to find that all these hot little flamenco ballerinas are snooty and hypocritical, to the highest order, and none of the guys like her."

"Were you at this ball?" Martha wondered.

"It was a club, more like, but could have passed for a ball," the Doctor told her. "She came up to me, thinking I was one of the locals, and flirted a bit, asked me to dance, but I was too busy looking for you. She asked if she was boring me, and even that, I sort of brushed aside."

"Doctor!"

"I know, I know," he confessed. "But I didn't understand who she was, or what would happen. And I didn't know where you were, Martha."

She cleared her throat and continued. _"Like a bull in the arena, charging into anything that moves, Irénée, out of breath, furious, ended up seeing red. Seizing their fans, their hair a fright, Irénée was hitting hard with the grace of a matador! 'My my, what a fly! Get her out of the air!' stammered thus the conchitas that she was tapping. '_Ay, caramba_, what a bullfight!' repeated the boys, who, my goodness, never recovered from ..."_

"Yes!" the Doctor cried out, interrupting a climactic verse of the story, remembering a split second too late that he was in a library. Several people turned and looked, scowling at the enthusiastic man in the suit. He switched to a whisper. "Yes. She started shoving people and knocking them down - just went into an all-over rage. I suppose it makes sense that someone might compare it to a bullfight. And everyone just stopped what they were doing and watched!"

Martha continued. _"It was therefore in losing her head hat Irénée made her conquest of the population..."_

"Oh yeah, so, she wasn't just bashing into people," the Doctor explained. "She kind of annihilated their character. It was rather a brilliant display of rhetoric... but vulgar."

"What does that mean, _annihilated their character_?"

"It means, she started in with personal attacks," the Doctor related, eyebrows fully up. "She was asking the men whether all that really mattered to them was... what did she say? Having a five-foot-seven mannequin who dances like a robot (or something) and has lips for sucking."

Martha chuckled. "Ah. Well, I guess some guys think that's all that matters..."

"And she outed one girl's pregnancy! And revealed that the father could be one of three different men with whom the girl had... well, we'll just call them, ever-so-brief relationships. One night at a party. "

"All three? At one party?"

"Apparently," the Doctor answered with distaste.

"Classy girl."

"Mm. I suspect that when the song says _the men never recovered_ it's that their lives changed forever after that point... though perhaps the song itself meant something much less dire, before ol' Vance Ray came in and made it weird."

"Yeah, the song doesn't say anything about a girl with three guys in one night."

"No, I guess that was added for fun, like the beachside kiosk, and all that rubbish about Ana's dad threatening Miguel. Oh, but here's the best bit: I was one of those three guys, and a friend to the family! So the girl's brother tried to take my head off."

"Oh! Yikes!" Martha exclaimed. "How could you be one of them?"

"I don't know! How did we end up in a Louisiana marsh in the middle of a territorial conflict down there? How could you be Ana's favourite handmaid? How could I be a fisherman alongside Miguel? If I knew how any of this worked... if we could just slow down for a bit and work out how he's doing this..." The Doctor had pointedly trailed off.

"Doctor, you've gone catatonic," Martha said, waving her hand in front of his face.

"Sorry," he said, snapping to. "It's just... I think we ought to try and seek out this Vance Ray. Work out how he's doing it. I mean, this is the fourth time this sort of thing has happened to us, and we've never bothered to try and go to the source!"

"That's true," Martha admitted. "That's not like you."

"I know, what's been the matter with me?"

There was a pause, while they both separately considered the implications of what they were going to try and do. After a time, Martha's thoughts shifted again, and she asked, "Shall I finish the song?"

"Oh, yeah. Please."

"Okay, so I left off with: _It was therefore in losing her head that Irénée made her conquest of the population, but most definitely of a certain Ramón. As for the handsomish guy, she said,'Yes, you are the love of my life!' She took advantage of the caprice of the country. 'Oh, I would like very much to see my Vendée again! Oh, my Ramón, take me back there if you are a man!' The poor guy, my goodness, didn't have a choice! With Irénée he therefore breached the Pyrenees, and there it was, that in Vendée that they praised everything that goes...To have, every night of the week, a bullfight at home!"_

"That's right, so, Irénée saved my life in the end, by calling off the brother of the girl I had allegedly knocked up... though not me, that Spanish guy they all thought I was..."

"Got it. Go on." She rolled her eyes.

"And this guy, Ramón, he comes out of the loo and sees the whole thing, and offers to buy her a drink," the Doctor exclaimed. "It was fantastic! He was the only guy in the whole place who seemed to have any spark of brains or self-awareness, and she looked like she'd melt into a puddle when he asked her... it's all she had wanted, and dancing had got her nowhere, but when she made a scene... _then _she finally got her Spanish gentleman!"

"Oh, but it looks like she got him to take her back to France," Martha commented, looking at her notes.

"Well, good for them," the Doctor said. "Good riddance to Costa Brava. In every possible way."

"And have further bull fights... _at home_," Martha sang. "Sounds kind of saucy."

The Doctor smiled. "Good for them there too."

Martha was contemplative. "Doctor, do you think Vance Ray meant for you to die this time? I mean, to put you in that position with a girl like Irénée, she was bound to try and help you out."

"Yeah, but I did have to do a lot of dodging first," the Doctor remembered. "I did almost get hit in the noggin about four times with a lead pipe before she stepped in, and that was only after I sort of got her attention... but maybe you're right. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's more lessons..."

"I was thinking that too," she sighed.

"Because when I was there, and Irénée was pushing people about on the dance floor, I felt, like, a pit of guilt in my stomach. I felt like a cad. I realised what I had done to her, how I was probably the fifteenth guy that night to do the same thing - completely ignore her and look over her head for someone I'd rather be with. I'm not that guy - at least, I don't want to be that guy anymore. I thought I had learned from you... Don't get me wrong, I was on my guard, but feeling contrite, to be sure."

"Contrite."

"Of course. But not about her - I knew she wasn't real. I was feeling _you_, and our past."

"So, angst," Martha sighed. "These aliens are really not done making us pay for the first two years we knew each other."

"But S'Dromer gave me this message, the same one, Martha," he reasoned. "One of the siblings. She wanted me to see that I'd been wrong about you. After all we'd been through, I love you - of course I'd love you, and how could I not? I got the message then - why would they be giving me the same routine?"

"Well, Doctor, Vance Ray said something at the festival, just before you got blipped away to Irénée's world," she confessed. "And it really got to me. And this is getting to you."

"What was it he said?"

"I'm sure it was meant for me. I'm sure he was trying to do the same thing to me, that he tried to do with you, with Irénée. He said something about how Ana, at least, had someone to love her in return. Not everyone could claim that. Some people chase around the object of their affection like an idiot."

"He meant Irénée. She was in the next song."

"No, it was aimed at me, Doctor, I could feel it. Just like you could feel the _message_ coming at you about paying attention when a..."

"Martha, don't be stupid," he told her flatly, dismissively.

She was so shocked, she couldn't even respond. She tried to shake it off, but the Doctor was already off and running again, mentally. She hadn't felt this way around him since before...

"So, we said we were going to go the source," the Doctor said. "Go try and find this Vance Ray character so he can show us what he's doing."

"Erm, okay," she choked out, her insides starting to churn.

He squinted. "And I think I have an idea how to find him. Come on."

* * *

_**Irénée **_** is sung by Paris Combo. I highly recommend ALL of their music, even if you don't understand French! You'll have a blast with them!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Oh nooooo!**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

As they turned left out of Harold Washington Public Library and headed toward Michigan Avenue, she trailed a step or two behind, jogging a bit as he walked. And she wondered what the hell had come over him. They were in the midst of dealing with a problem in which all suggestions and scenarios were possible, and yet, when Martha had wondered at the very real likelihood of an alien who simply wanted to torture her emotionally, he had dismissed her by telling her, "Don't be stupid."

Perhaps the Doctor had been right, perhaps she was being stupid. Or at least silly and obtuse, letting it hit her so hard, the idea of a girl who chased after men like a bull, and had no-one to love her. Martha had always been popular, everywhere she went, and it had only been since meeting the Doctor that she had felt at all rejected... but even _that_ wasn't true anymore. Maybe the Doctor had been insulted by the idea that she was still able to relate to someone who pined for romance. Maybe he thought she was implying he wasn't doing a good enough job... which was far from the truth. Should she try to find a way to reassure him that they were solid?

They entered the campus of Roosevelt University, and Martha saw a sign. "Music is Love," it read, in bright pink letters on a banner outside of what she felt was probably an arts building.

"See that sign?" she asked the Doctor.

He glanced at it. "What about it?"

"Don't you think it's true?

"What?" he asked, the determined scowl never having left his face.

"I mean, especially for us," she said. "Since our relationship was formed through music. At least, _this part_ of our relationship."

"Yeah, I guess."

"I guess it stands to reason that someone would try to tear us apart through music, since that's how we found each other."

"Mm," he replied, plowing ahead.

They took a left after two blocks when they arrived at Michigan Avenue.

Two more blocks found them at the Symphony Center, just another two blocks from Millennium Park where the festival was being held.

"The Symphony Center?" she asked. "You think this is where the alien is hiding?"

"I don't think he's necessarily hiding here, I think this might be where he resides."

"Seriously? What, in the cellar, like the Phantom of the Opera?"

"No, I mean his consciousness," he said. "It lives in music."

Her eyes opened wide, and she blinked hard. "Oh."

"He's been playing recordings as a mask. But I think if we can get to some live music, we can find him. Especially this kind of music - a symphony, lush and large. We're bound to be able to manifest him, or work out how he manifests himself."

"Oh," she repeated, surprised, and a little hurt, but not by him. She muttered, "Well, I guess I can see why you weren't too keen to agree that music is a symbol of our love."

"Mm," he said to her again, frustratingly non-committal. "Come on." He took her by the elbow and led her to the end of a line of people that led into the Symphony Center.

"We're going to stand in the queue?" she whispered.

"We won't find him until the music starts," he told her, irritated. "What good would it be to Cloak-and-Dagger our way in too early? We might as well enter when everyone else does."

"Okay. But why are you so annoyed?"

"I'm not annoyed," he snapped.

"Clearly, you are."

He didn't say anything more, he simply set his jaw in a way that let Martha know she'd be hearing no more on the topic, and he stared straight forward, at the back of the head of the man standing in front of them.

She gathered her thoughts. Something was obviously bothering him - whether it was her, or the problem at hand, she did not know. She entertained for a moment the idea that the alien's mojo was infiltrating the Doctor's mind, affecting his personality or demeanour. More likely, though, something about the songs they had heard was getting under his skin - something about Ana or Irénée, or what he had seen in the world of fictional Costa Brava, which meant that the alien's plan was working! He was getting to their hearts, and causing doubt. None of this was particularly pleasant to think about, given that she had no idea what to do about any of it.

The only think she could think of was something the Doctor himself might do: keep talking.

"Well," she sighed. "I suppose maybe music itself isn't a symbol for _us_. Maybe that's too broad anyway. I mean, there's a lot of vile music out there... including all those showtunes that Ramechac threw at me a year ago when this whole thing started! I don't want West End insanity associated with what makes you and me... you and me."

"Okay," he replied.

"Or all those campy eighties' songs you heard when S'Dromer was messing with you. I mean, Janet Jackson's okay, but not so much that _Toy Soldiers_ song. Isn't that about drug addiction anyway?"

The Doctor shrugged.

Martha continued to ruminate. "All of that rubbish was music that was imposed upon us. If we're going to have our relationship symbolized with something, it should be something that _we_ chose. How is it that we've never talked about _our song_?"

He shrugged again, never looking at her.

At this point, she could hear herself talking, and she knew she was starting to ramble, and sound a bit daft. She was starting to "chase after" him verbally, and he was not giving her anything - just like in the old days. She wished she could stop, but something inside was impelling her to speak. Fear was spurring her on, fear that if she fell silent, it would signify that she was accepting his cold shoulder, and he would drift away somehow.

"It should be Enya's music, don't you think?" she asked him.

He did not respond in any way.

"Doctor? Don't you think it should be Enya's music?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Sure, why not?"

"Do you remember why?" she asked. She was trying to smile, but on the inside, she was tied up in knots. The fear was starting to share space in her stomach with anger.

He drew in a long breath, and then let it out slowly, with a sigh of tedium. "Yes, Martha, I remember. But no, I think you were right the first time. Music itself is the metaphor for our relationship."

The knot loosened a bit, and she smiled. "Really? Why?"

Still not looking at her, he answered, "Because music that was foisted upon us by aliens with an agenda, it's what brought us together. And now that we know where the consciousness of the alien resides, all music is now tainted. So yes - I'd say, it's a good comparison."

Her jaw dropped. "What are you saying?" she whispered.

He went silent again.

Her mouth had gone dry, and her voice was failing her. "Are you saying our relationship is tainted too?" she croaked.

"It began with an artificial world where I was badgered into admitting that I had feelings for you," he pointed out.

"Badgered?" she asked, her face pressed into a deep frown.

"Do you know what happens to a prisoner who gets tortured and told to confess to a crime, even if they didn't do it? They confess anyway." His tone was low, flat, matter-of-fact. "They might even start to believe it themselves."

"So it's a sham? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm trying _not_ to _say_ it."

She couldn't speak. She was literally too stunned for words. Her brain refused to process what she was hearing. It was a mess of feelings and memories, like a big cobweb had formed in her mind, each tiny thread some fragment of an image or event. They were all fibres of an ugly blanket that was now blinding all control of her conscious thoughts.

The Doctor, running around the console. The day they first met. Their first true kiss in her parents' garden after realising they loved each other. _Tell me, Doctor, just say you don't love me._ Daleks in the Empire State Building. The look on his face on the day she left. Having tea silently in her parents' basement, listening to Joni Mitchell. _Stop being cryptic - just put me on a plane back to London if that's what you want. _Months of fear and loathing in 1913. Hearing _Only Time_ in the background while they peeled each other's clothes off. _Talk to me... please, Doctor. Either that or cut me loose._

But, one very clear thought came through: the alien has definitely tainted their love now. If it hadn't been tainted before, all of this New Orleans/fishing boat/Costa Brava rubbish certainly had done the job. A man like the Doctor who can see all things in the universe connected as if by string, _of course_ he would make that connection, and want to spurn her.

She looked around. The woman behind her in the queue made very brief eye-contact, smiled slightly, and then went back to reading her brochure, a little too avidly. Martha knew she had been listening to her and the Doctor implode. The couple in front of them whispered to each other, and then the man glanced backward subtly, as though checking his blind-spot for a passing car.

She finally found some words. They were not particularly poignant nor intelligent, but they were true. She pushed him out of the line and dragged him by the arm to a space against the wall of the building, between two shadowboxes which housed plasma screens, previewing upcoming symphony events. "Doctor, you're scaring me." She was not surprised to hear her voice break when she spoke. Nevertheless, she took a deep breath and pulled her emotions into check again.

"Yeah, I'm scaring myself," he muttered, leaning against the brick wall with one shoulder. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the pavement beneath this trainers.

"Listen, please don't let this Vance Ray business get under your skin," she begged, her hand on his forearm, squeezing.

"Too late."

"He's been trying to kill us, and failing that, he's trying to make us implode as a couple," she told him. "For my part, he really hit home with me when he mentioned that Ana had someone to love her back, but that Irénée chased the boys like a... well, in the song, she's like a big bull."

"Please," he said, waving off her comment. "That's not you."

"Isn't it? Don't I have the right to feel that way?"

"Feel however you want."

"Feel however I _want_? Is that the best you can do?"

"Maybe."

She exhaled harshly, and crossed her own arms now. "Feel however I want? Maybe that's the best you can do? I can't believe I'm hearing this!"

He stared at her for a few seconds, then began to walk away to join the queue again. "I'm not going to talk about this."

She was frozen for a moment. After a few beats, she recovered, and stalked back over to the line, now not caring who could hear. "You _have_ to talk about this! Or at least listen and react somehow! I'm telling you, I'm feeling insecure because a force is trying to tell me that I'm unloved. It is your job to tell me I'm wrong... and don't just _tell _me with a wave of your hand and some glib response. Reassure me. Act like you care! Something's got into my heart and made it sick, now you have to fix it because you love me! And you, you are _clearly_ not yourself because something's got inside you too..."

"I am myself, Martha. I'm just seeing the truth, and it's not what you want to hear, so you're angry!"

"Don't you get it?" she pleaded. "This is exactly what he wants!"

"Yeah, well," he mumbled. "Sometimes the bad guy wins."

She frowned. "I get that, but since when do we _let _them win?"

He shrugged.

"Doctor, I have literally _walked across this planet_ so that the bad guy wouldn't win! And now you're not willing to _have a difficult conversation_?"

"The planet is not at stake, Martha," he pointed out, eyes blazing. "We're not saving a species here."

Her eyes filled with tears again, and her voice dropped down to a low, controlled drone. "No, we're just saving our relationship. Which I thought was important, tainted though it may be."

He remained silent, and he stared toward the front of the queue, which had begun to move.

"You know, time was, you would move galaxies just to save one human being," she reminded him, tears streaming down her face as they walked slowly toward the door.

He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted the psychic paper, but he did not answer her.

They moved in silence as Martha attempted to soak up her tears with the sleeve of her shirt.

When they reached the ticket scanner, the little wireless laser gun blipped on the psychic paper with no troubles. "Hello sir," said the scanner, a plumpish, greying man in an embroidered vest. "First time to the symphony?"

The Doctor looked at Martha. "No, it's not. I've been to the symphony many times before. Fairly recently, even."

_Now that really seems like an unnecessary jab,_ thought Martha. She did not hide her anger as her teeth clenched together and her lips pressed into a mass of wrinkled flesh.

"Oh, you're English!" asked the man, waving them through. "Well, of course! You can't stumble down the streets of London without bumping into a theater of some kind. Culture just abounds there! Love that city!"

The Doctor didn't say anything, so Martha compensated, so as not to seem rude. "Very true, sir, we love it too. Thank you."

"Gotta warn you, though," said the man, taking tickets from the next set of symphony-goers in the queue. "This particular symphony, it's new, and it definitely has its problems. This is really a test-run - don't know how many performances it'll actually endure."

"Great. Thanks for the warning," muttered the Doctor.

He turned and made a beeline for somewhere, and Martha followed. She had half a mind just to let him go, but despite what anyone said, she still had hope for this particular symphony.


	11. Chapter 11

**Well, get ready for a little punch in the gut. Sigh.**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

The Doctor was headed with purpose down a side corridor of the Symphony Center. It wasn't entirely deserted - people with orchestra-section tickets were also headed in that direction, as well as anyone following the "restroom" signs.

Martha followed, once again, having to jog a bit to keep up with the Doctor's long strides.

"Doctor, where are we headed, exactly?" she asked.

In answer, he made for a door labelled "Authorized Personnel," sonicked it opened, and stepped through, leaving a bit of room for her.

"Okay," she said, conceding to the clandestine situation.

They were now clearly backstage, as the only people they could see were either dressed in black or wearing headsets. He continued to push ahead with some unspoken goal in mind.

Abruptly, the Doctor stopped, and pulled Martha aside, near a drinking fountain. "All right. I think that the alien is using a triangular frequency, which means, if we want to get on it, we have to form a triangle. So give me your phone."

She dug into her pockets and produced her mobile, handing it over. "How'd you come to that conclusion?"

He opened up her phone and aimed the sonic screwdriver at it. "It doesn't matter. Now," he said, frowning as the thing buzzed in his hand. "Keep walking in that direction, and I'll be able to track you, using the signal between your phone and the sonic. I'll send you a text message when it's time to stop. At that point, you, me and the centre of the orchestra should be forming a perfect isoceles triangle, and I should be able to sense the alien's presence, and then work out how to communicate with it."

"Okay. What do I do then?"

"Nothing. Stand still."

"And let you do all the work? Go into the abstract lair of an alien that has been actively trying to kill us? On your own? I don't think so!"

"Martha, would you just listen to me?" he asked her, exasperated.

"Only if you'll listen to me!" She planted her hands on her hips and took two small steps forward, going for a toe-to-toe effect.

He crossed his arms, and glared at her.

"Doctor, what is going on?"

"I should think that would be abundantly clear by now," he answered.

"What, so... we're just... done?"

He sighed. "Martha, it's no-one's fault. Except maybe Vance Ray - that lot."

"No, I'd say it's plenty _your_ fault!" she shot back. "Doctor, you are _letting_ them - him, whoever - get under your skin! You and me, we are not a sham! And deep down, you know that, so please, help me!"

"Help you, what?"

"Help me fix this," she pleaded. "The damage they've done to you today..."

"It's not just today, Martha, and it's not just me," he insisted. "I told you. It's been in both of our heads since the beginning. And there's nothing to fix!"

"Yes there is! Anything that's broken can be fixed!"

He severed eye-contact with her, turned his back and took a few steps away. A man in a tuxedo came through a doorway, smiled vaguely at them, and disappeared through another doorway.

"Nothing's broken, because nothing was ever right! And if that means that something _is_ broken, Martha... then _everything_ is broken." He leaned against a wall and bowed his head. "I'm sorry."

"I can't believe this."

"Today's adventures have made me see," he told her. "We did not come together because _we_ wanted to be together. They brought us together as a tool for their amusement."

"So let's foil them! Let's not let them get us. We won't be amusing to them - we'll resist and stay strong! Please don't give up, Doctor," her voice, even, was losing its urgency. "Oh... my..."

The hallways had emptied, and they could now hear the orchestra out onstage, tuning in preparation for the performance. One imperfect note hung in the air as various instruments, in turn, made adjustments. Through a propped-open door, she could see at least fifteen different heads under lights, bowed and intent on making beautiful music, and she could even see part of the audience.

"Look," he said, walking toward her. He softened, and actually took her hand. "We had a whole year of being the best of friends. You took care of me like no-one else ever had, or could. We had another year apart, and you were still taking care of me. When you left, I was overwhelmed by your generosity and feeling guilty that I had taken you for granted, and then this S'Dromer comes along and takes advantage of the situation. I was vulnerable to it, so she pushed me over the edge, and filled in blanks for me that weren't there. She made me think I was in love with you, and then of course, we fell into an ill-advised affair. And... I can't deny that we had a nice time together, even if it was just for a little while."

"Ill-advised?"

"Don't focus on that bit, Martha. We were in love, or thought we were. We've got closer, had some good intimate moments... some really intense intimate moments, haven't we?"

"Yeah," she said, wiping her eyes, sniffling a bit.

"Think about the time we've spent together, since the Judoon at Royal Hope, up until today. All of that... Martha, for better or worse, it's more than a lot of people get."

She let the tears fall for a few seconds, and became frustrated with herself for this display of emotion. More than anything, she was angry, but all that she could express was sadness and despair. She managed to croak out, "I just... I can't believe I waited all that time to have you, and now it's all getting thrown away."

"We're not throwing anything away..."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I think that we have something that merits enough consideration to say... we're throwing it away. Or rather, you are." She took two steps back from him, and looked down at her phone. Pretending to be half-engrossed in the electronic display, she continued, "I'm sorry if you don't feel that way. I guess, if that's the case, then it is better if you just go. We're in my time, I can find my own way home."

"No, I'll take you home, if that's what you really want to do," he said. "But I was hoping we could still travel together, just not..."

"Nope. No way. I know what it's like to want something from you that you're not willing to give - I did that for too long, as it was. I held on for too long, and it almost destroyed me... well, I guess, now it has. So... I'll wait for your text, yeah?"

And with that, she walked away from him, determined to be of use today, but if their relationship was over, she was also determined not to see him anymore. She would not give him any kind of closure here, no opportunity to have the last word, no more chances to talk her into his way of thinking. She would leave through the other side of the Symphony Center and call her parents as soon as she could. She didn't have any money on her at the moment (all of her things were in the TARDIS), so they would have to help her get a plane ticket back to London... might as well confess to her mother that she had been right about the Doctor straight away. She'd have to do it sometime - why not today?

The symphony began to fill the air around her as she walked. It was an intense minor chord, with some underlying cellos tugging at the listener, almost as though it were brewing something new beneath the main thread of music. The cellos reminded her of a gathering storm, perhaps like the one they had seen on the coast in Spain, the one that had drowned Miguel. They reminded her of the slow burn that had dominated her life for two years living with (and without) the Doctor, before he relieved the ache. The desire she never spoke of, the heat the brewed beneath the surface of their friendship, all that time...

She wanted very badly to turn and look at him, see him one more time - the tall, lithe, painfully alluring man in a pin-striped suit, who had so captivated her... who still _did _captivate her. But she did not. She knew there would be pain on his face, in spite of the fact that he'd brought this upon himself, and she knew it would kill her resolve. She did not want to remember him for any vulnerability - she wanted to remember him as the resilient, powerful Time Lord who could also be incredibly dull and cruel, and who had broken her heart.

And then the string section took off from the deep, infernal cellos, and soared. It grew louder and fuller, swung to and fro like a pendulum, and something in the music felt right. It flowed as she walked, in sync with her steps, her heartbeat, her body and its impetus... the music enveloped her, and grew stronger as the woodwinds, then brass grew up around it. She felt cradled by it, almost safe in its presence. The way it seemed to pervade her, though, it wasn't just about safety - it was about joy. She felt passion in the music, the way it develops in layers... learning about each others' kiss, each others' desires, bodies, signals, the little incendiary devices that can make each other sing.

She let the music take her, and knew that she had gone round a giant curve behind the stage, and that even if she looked back now, she would not see the Doctor.

The text message came abruptly. She almost didn't notice it, taken as she was in the symphony. She felt almost mournful to take her attention away from the music, and apply it to the vibrating phone, and the display that said, "Stop."

For a few moments she stood, not knowing what to do next, not knowing how she would know when the debacle with the alien was over. The Doctor had expressly not invited her into the alien's lair with him to help dispatch it, or talk it down, or whatever he was planning. As far as she knew, she was to stand there, forming a triangle, while the Doctor dived into the music.

And then the music stopped. There was no warning, no climax, no key-change, nothing to allow the listener to feel that anything was amiss, or coming to a close. The building seemed to fall deadly silent, and Martha thought, _the Doctor's got in._

_But what if that means that the music's disappeared, and he's disappeared with it? How do I get him back out? Even if we're done as couple, I can't let him just languish in the den of the beast!_

To her left and in front of her, there was a door, and she had distinctly heard music coming through it, when there had been music. She reckoned it must be the stage door. Whatever was happening to the Doctor, she didn't feel that the symphony going quiet was the desired result, so she set about bringing the music back. How could she get the conductor to conduct, again, the musicians to play?

But when she walked out onstage, what she saw took her breath away.


	12. Chapter 12

**So, I made a boo-boo. The song in this chapter was not released until January of 2008, and this story is taking place in the fall of 2007. But, by the time I realized that, trust me when I say, it was too late to change! And, it's not unreasonable to think that perhaps the recording was out there floating around as a bootleg or something, a few months early... or that an unscrupulous alien who can manipulate reality could get hold of it before its official release date!**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

There had been no compressing, sweeping, sick-making transport from reality into whatever the hell Vance Ray had wanted her to see. The Doctor had simply seen Martha Jones fade away in mid-sentence, without reaction, without trepidation, without ceremony.

She had been explaining to him that Vance Ray's words about how Ana had had someone to love her had bothered her, because she was equating herself with someone who does not receive that love in return. And the Doctor, he had been thinking that her feelings were understandable, even though her love for him was no longer unrequited; he understood better than anyone how long-held, unfulfilled desires leave an imprint on the soul that takes time to heal. Vance Ray knew exactly what he was doing, poking at that particular scab on Martha's psyche.

But he never had the chance to reassure her, nor even hear her thought become complete, because in the course of about three seconds, she turned transparent and disappeared right in front of him. It was startling, but at the same time, rather smooth. Of course, no-one in the room, save for the Doctor, seemed to notice.

So there he was, in a cluster of computers in the back of a library in Chicago, staring at an empty chair.

_Blimey, I must look daft._

But all at once he realised: Vance Ray's mode of travel had changed - it had got more slick, more subtle. But, his objective and principal _modus operandi_ likely had not. He may have transported her in a way that let her go more smoothly - so smoothly that she had never stopped talking and perhaps hadn't even noticed she'd been transported - but he was still using music. And he was using it to exacerbate her personal wounds.

That meant that he was probably torturing her right now, playing on her darkest fears, and had her duped into believing it was real. So, wherever she was, whatever was happening to her, she was probably terrified and/or miserable. And, if Martha never realised that it was one of the alien's fantasy scenarios, she may very well get wrapped up in it forever, second-guessing, dwelling, never quite letting go... it was the exact type of thing that could sustain this sort of artificial "magic," or whatever it was. He couldn't help but see her in his mind's eye, crying, screaming, running, her spirit being crushed, probably by some localised, trumped-up vision of _him_. He didn't know exactly what hell Vance Ray was putting her through, but he had an idea, and just the thought of it made his insides ache.

"Oh, no you don't," he spat through clenched teeth, a bit more loudly than he had meant to. He stood up and quickly apologised with his eyes to those sitting around him who had bothered to look up from their important internet-surfing, and he dashed toward the front of the Harold Washington Public Library, and turned left toward Michigan Avenue.

He jogged over the short blocks to get back to Millennium Park where the festival was being held, and where Vance Ray, such as he was, waited. He dodged the throng of people littering the streets of a Saturday afternoon in Chicago, and held the sonic screwdriver aloft, trying to find the signal, the alien transmission coming from the park, masking itself as a regular, Earth-based broadcast. He slammed the tip of the sonic against his opposite hand a few times, and coaxed it with some choice words, yet to no avail.

On through the campus of Roosevelt University, he saw the brightly-coloured signs in front of the arts building, stating that _Music is Love._ For a moment, it stopped him in his tracks. Assuming that Martha didn't know she'd been pulled into something artificial, she would still be in Chicago, in a manner of speaking. And if she saw that sign, and she's in a scenario meant to play on her worst fears... oh, there was _so much_ that could be done to mess with her mind.

He swore, and hit the sonic even harder against this thigh, and plowed on ahead toward the park. He needed to find the alien, he needed find the frequency and device he was using to transport them (and perhaps an entirely new game had begun with this new, barely-noticeably travel method he'd used on Martha), but above all, he needed to get her out.

By the time he reached the park, there was no music playing, except for a Sitar plucking "We Can Work It Out," through a CD player at a nearby booth. He stopped to ask what had happened to the DJ who had been playing the international music. The bearded man in the booth, dressed in what looked like an orange and red burlap dress, rather absently said he thought the DJ had gone on a break, and wondered whether the Doctor might like to buy his newest recording of 1960's covers, _Sitar On the Dock of the Bay_?

"Do you remember the last song he played?" asked the Doctor.

"No," said the man. "It was some chick singing. Easy on the ears, but wicked conventional."

"What language was it in?"

"I don't know. Sounded like English to me."

"You don't know, but it sounded like English to you? Brilliant," sighed the Doctor, realising even then that it might have been his own fault for choosing this particular individual as his informant.

Exasperated, he made a dash across half the park to find the TARDIS, and unlocked the door, stumbling inside. He went straight for the console, and typed in a few commands.

"Since you were able to pick up the alien's signal from afar," the Doctor said to her. "Perhaps you can pick up the last transmission on that frequency, and play it back, yeah?"

Sure enough, a chord of gentle strings and woodwinds came through the speakers of the console room, just before a melancholy clarinet took over with its own melody, and then faded out again.

The Doctor smiled widely. He would hear the song Martha was embroiled in, and know what she must be thinking, experiencing and feeling. But he was also smiling because this meant that the TARDIS might be able to _duplicate _ the signal, mimic it. He might be able to reverse the signal and broadcast the song back into Martha's world, wherever she was, which would help her realise that it wasn't real, and help her wriggle free of its thrall.

A few other keystrokes were meant to be the commands that would do just that, but he quickly saw that all that mimicking the signal would do is broadcast the song back out to the festival, as the original signal had done.

_Well, it may not get Martha's attention, but it will certainly get Vance Ray's._

A soft, lilting feminine voice overtook the orchestra now. The Doctor recognised her as Sarah Brightman, apparently the singer that Vance Ray had chosen to represent Great Britain in his international playlist. A good choice, he thought, since she's plenty international herself... though the song of the moment was in English.

_I don't know what I'm supposed to say_

_When now suddenly you seem so far away_

_But you're not prepared to talk_

_And if you're now afraid to listen_

_Then I don't want to do this anymore_

Uh-oh. A shut-out, a lack of communication? This probably meant tears and turmoil, wherever she was.

_Oh I don't know which way that I should turn_

_Since the more we love, the more we have to learn_

_Well, I keep staring into space_

_Like it somehow has the answers_

_So don't let the music end, oh my darling_

Don't let the music end. Given that Vance Ray's siblings had "helped" them to find each other through music, and given the garish signs on the Roosevelt arts building, Martha would be equating their relationship with music.

_Symphony_

_It's gone quiet around us now_

_How I wish you would hold me_

_And that you'd never told me..._

_And it's better if you leave_

_Look at the sun_

_We're starting to lose all of the light_

_Oh we once burned so brightly_

_Tell me we might be_

_Throwing it away_

_And you don't know what you've got until it's gone_

_But then, nothing ever hurt like holding on_

_I am scared and unprepared_

_And I feel like I am falling_

_So can you tell me, where did we go wrong?_

_Symphony_

_It's gone quiet around us now_

_How I wish you would hold me_

_And that you'd never told me_

_That it's better if you leave_

_If everything is broken_

_And it's better that we give up_

_Oh, remember how we once had something beautiful_

And then the _Symphony_ refrain repeated, and the Doctor fell deep into thought. Though it didn't take any probing from a Time Lord to see what Vance Ray was up to.

The "symphony" in the song would surely be a symbol to her... and the song said it had gone quiet around them. Not to mention all the other stuff in the lyrics about how it hurts to hold on, how everything is broken, how they're throwing it away, but how they should remember they once had something beautiful. In her eyes, their relationship was imploding, and she would be in floods of tears. Or, knowing Martha as he did, perhaps she was refusing to go that far, and was simply in a great deal of pain.

"Well, well," a voice said behind him, within the TARDIS. The voice sounded American, rather a deep, grand voice, and familiar. Oh, so familiar. "Look who finally found his ass with both hands."

* * *

**"Symphony" by Sarah Brightman is gorgeous, and another piece I would highly recommend! Sarah is an acquired taste, but once you get to know her, she is fabulous.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"Doctor, I have to say, I'm disappointed. I'd have thought you'd figure out how to unmask and reverse my broadcast much sooner," the voice continued, gently mocking.

The Doctor turned. A man stood there, right in the TARDIS, having materialised seemingly out of thin air. He was wearing what looked like an old-fashioned letterman's jacket, a white tee-shirt, very darkly-dyed blue jeans over Chuck Taylor trainers just like the Doctor's. His hair was coiffed-up in a spectacular Pompadour that would have put Elvis to shame.

"Oh, hello," the Doctor said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Vance Ray, I presume?"

"In the flesh," the DJ answered. "More or less. But actually, my real name is Vancheré. I am the..."

"The Bringer of Vengeance? Am I close?"

"Pretty close," said Vancheré. "I'm the _Harbinger_ of Vengeance. It's a subtle difference."

"I must admit, you _are_ more savvy than your siblings," the Doctor commented, leaning back on the console. "Your voice, your appearance... all of it is less attention-grabbing than the giant, oozing, talking sofa-pillow motif espoused by your kinfolk."

The DJ smirked. "Well, this look is a glamour, of course," he shrugged. "In reality I don't look much different from them. I've tried to convince them that it would be easier for them to wreak holy havoc if they would learn how to manipulate visual perception as well, but will they listen? Of course not. They're still stuck back in the Klongg Swergel Dynasty, if you ask me."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. "Bring Martha back to me."

"She's safe."

The Doctor squinted at the ceiling in mock-contemplation. "Er, I don't recall asking for an adjective. In fact, I don't recall asking for a verbal response at all. You know what you need to do, and talking about it will not get it done."

The alien laughed. "Oh, but Doctor, like you, I am a man of many words. I can talk all day! And, believe me when I tell you, you'll never see her again, but she is fine. She will not die, where she is. She is in no immediate danger. And, think about it. If I gave her back to you, could you really guarantee the same conditions? Would there be no death, nor immediate danger if she came back into your world? The world of the Time Lord who travels through the ages and saves planets and gets so easily kidnapped by reality-manipulating aliens?"

"Oh, well, how nice of you to keep her out of harm's way for me, that's extremely considerate, thanks," the Doctor quipped sarcastically. "Blimey, I don't know why I haven't given you a medal yet."

"It's the truth. Your life is dangerous, Doctor. Just look at today's events! Martha Jones would never have been in that kind of situational peril if you had never come into her life. Is that really fair?"

The Doctor sighed and said with boredom, "Of course, the moral ambiguity of dragging someone I care about into the line of fire is a conundrum that has _never, ever _crossed my mind, not in eight-hundred-odd years of travelling with companions. So, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I'll make sure to torture myself chewing on that little gem."

"If you loved her, you would just let her remain where she is."

The Doctor's face remained flat. "Seriously? _That _is your tactic?"

Vancheré shrugged, and his face suggested that he had made his point, and he stood by it.

The Doctor took three steps forward. The two of them now were only inches apart, eye-to-eye. "Look, if you don't get her back for me, then I'll do it myself, and you won't like it," he threatened.

Vancheré's face twisted into a sarcastic sort of pity. "It's a tremendously convincing threat, Doctor, but the fact is that she out of your reach. Sorry."

"You underestimate me, Vancheré," the Doctor said, barely moving his lips. "Your family has always underestimated me. And Martha, for that matter. Are you really presuming to know what is out of my reach?"

Vancheré smirked again. "Well, I see that I have not underestimated your ability to grandstand. I'll tell you, I could _almost _believe this little performance!"

The Doctor quickly realised that this conversation was going nowhere. He disengaged from Vancheré, and began to pace. "And I'll tell _you,_ Vancheré, you only _think _you're a man of many words. Just watch this, glamour-head."

The alien scoffed.

The Doctor continued. "You said a few minutes ago that you have tried to convince your brothers and sisters to learn to manipulate visual perception _as well_. So, as well as what? It's clear that your species can screw with reality and make it do what you want it to, at least on a localised basis, specific to certain individuals," the Doctor contemplated, rather quickly and loudly. "And you can cloak it from being perceived by bystanders, and you seem to have recently learned how to cloak it even from the victim, since Martha disappeared from right in front of me, and she never even reacted, am I right? But how are you doing it? What's the nature of the manipulation?"

Vancheré gave an artificial laugh, completely mirthless, and devoid of the whimsy that had characterised his demeanour thus far. "Heh, heh, heh. You're grasping at straws."

"I don't think so, because I can tell by your tone that you're getting nervous," the Doctor commented, matter-of-factly. "I don't blame you_. What's the nature of the manipulation_ is a very good question, if I do say so myself. It's a question that will bring me to the heart of your power, isn't it? And I can't believe I haven't asked it before! The fourth bloody go-round with you and your pathetic little family, and this is the first time I've bothered to wonder what _powers_ the magic, or whatever it is that you freaks wield. What makes it go?"

The alien in the letterman's jacket crossed his arms and frowned. "Careful, Doctor. Your words have power as well."

"What makes it go, what makes it go?" he continued to ask himself. "I mean, your brother Ramechac, his goal was nightmares, and S'Dromer, she was all about revelation. Essed'Iv just wanted us miserable, and you want vengeance and honour for your family... or something. The goal is different for each of you. But you, Ramechac and S'Dromer all used music and the incidental feelings that crop up with it, not to mention the ideas contained in the lyrics. Essed'Iv did not use music, but rather took our voices away, made it so that Martha and I couldn't speak to each other. So, different objectives, but the similarity has to do with sound."

"I am not above calling my siblings for help, Time Lord."

The Doctor flipped a switch on the console without looking, as he paced. "Good luck. I just blocked all telepathic signals into and out of the TARDIS, except, of course, for my own and the TARDIS'. Also, you'll probably find that you can't leave until I tell you, since the defences are up around the vessel now as well." Then he stopped for a moment and faced the alien squarely. "Honestly, why would you materialise inside my territory, and then try to tell me what I can and cannot do? And then _warn me _of what you're about to do? Are you that stupid?"

Vancheré was stunned, and the Doctor resumed pacing.

"I wonder if there are worlds of sound," the Doctor continued. "I know that there are pockets of the universe where worlds and planets are more manifestations of ideas than made of actual matter. There could be places where the environment is a manifestation of _sound_. What do you think?"

Once again, he stopped and looked at Vancheré, who returned an icy frown, but no words.

"I'll take that as, 'yes, you're absolutely right, Doctor, you're so clever!' And, since sound is intangible, then any being that comes from a world of sound, and has the ability to manipulate reality, would, of course, be able to press sound into reality, to take it and make it whole! Oh, yes, I think I'm on the right track here! Well, I suppose all along I've known this on some level, I'm just now bothering to _think_ about it. And you know what? When I start thinking about stuff, hold onto your hat. Or your hairdo, or whatever."

Vancheré's frown grew deeper, his anger more and more apparent with every step the Doctor took across the metal TARDIS floor.

"Because, as you know, I'm a Time Lord, and if there was any trick the Time Lords had up their sleeves, it was thinking about stuff. Well, that, and sonic technology," he said. He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket and tossed in the air, catching it coolly. "Hmm, interesting word, _sonic._ Having to do with sound. Interesting concept, really, a tool that affects both abstract and material things using sound waves. And... well, do you know what a _sonic_ device must be really good at affecting?"

He walked toward the fuming Vancheré now, whose breathing had grown intense and laboured. The Doctor also noticed that his face had grown much wider, and his letterman's jacket seemed to be fraying, and fading in certain places. The Pompadour was falling down, and the alien's true feet were now showing, in place of where the trainers had been. The glamour was becoming more difficult to maintain, as Vancheré's focus unravelled into fury.

"Come on," the Doctor teased. "I'll bet you know. What can a _sonic_ screwdriver fix better than anything else? Oh, rack your brain! Really think. _Sonic..._ _sound waves..._ No? Still can't work it out? Okay, I'll tell you. Sound! Ha-ha!"

The Doctor laughed with glee, and at that point, the alien's guise fell apart completely. Something that looked like a purple Jabba the Hut now stood where "Vance Ray" had been. Except, the creature had feet, and was more or less man-sized.

He also had what looked like two flaps on his head. They were ears. The Doctor made note of them, and the fact that the canals were closed off. Why would a creature from a world of sound have his ear canals shut?

The Doctor circled round the purple creature, looking him over. "Now, let's see," he muttered. "Judging by your siblings, and the fact that none of you ever have anything in your hands when you wield your weird little tricks, I'm going to assume that the manipulation is not rooted in an amulet or any kind of external power centre. So, I would think that it's your consciousness that keeps the fantasy going. Your _mind_ is, in a manner of speaking, where these scenarios exist. Your mind, then, of course, has to be large... vast! Bigger on the inside!"

"You can keep speculating, Doctor, you will not get me to reveal my secrets," Vancheré commented. Surprisingly, his voice retained the same crisp, American DJ-like bravado it had had before, only now it seethed with anger.

"Well, I don't know what conversation you've been hearing, but in the one I'm having, it's not necessary for you to reveal anything. I'm learning all that I need to know, pretty much without your help." He shrugged, then continued talking. "So, what that means is that any victim of your sound manipulation is sort of inside your mind... it's one of the reasons why, when the victim realises they're in one of your scenarios, it's harder to hold onto them. And unconscious victim is easier to control, yeah? And some sort of mechanism within your brain takes the sound being played and makes it real for the victim. Another mechanism fills in the blanks in the story, like the thing with Teresa in Costa Brava, and Ana's father and servants and whatnot. But... hm..."

The Doctor paced for a few moments without saying anything.

"Losing your train of thought, Doctor?" asked the alien.

"Of course not," the Doctor answered. "I'm just thinking, in Ramechac's game, Martha said she was _singing_ the songs, which means she could hear them. In S'Dromer's game, I could definitely hear the music. But this time round, in New Orleans, or the fishing beach, or in Costa Brava, I know we did not hear the music and lyrics driving the action. So... _that_ must be why your ear canals are closed off. It either literally or symbolically cuts off the sound to your mind, so that the people inside don't know what's happening to them! Oh, well, then it's not hard to work out what to do next!"

Vancheré then made a foolish dash for the TARDIS' door, but was met with an invisible forcefield that bounced him back inside.

"I tried to warn you, you know," the Doctor reminded him. "You can't leave until I tell you. And... I normally don't like keeping prisoners, and I _really_ don't like tying them down, but, you see, I'm desperate."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, all evidence suggests that you must be _made_ of sound, yeah? So, I'm really very sorry to do this, but..."

With that, the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the being made of sound, and the alien cried out, "What have you done?"

"Just keeping you in place for a few minutes, nothing major. I'll let you go as soon as I get what I want from you, okay. Just relax." He aimed the sonic at the purple alien again, locking his ear-flaps open.

"Doctor, you'll never get away with this!"

"Maybe not. You could have eighty other siblings who are worse than you, for all I know," the Doctor reasoned. "But there's one thing you may have forgotten about me, Vancheré. Sure, you get that I'm a Time Lord, I travel, I think, I sonic, blah blah blah. But I'm also a man in love, and _that_ makes me more dangerous than any guy who can see across the cosmos and the time vortex. So, you can make your threats and do your worst, but I _will_ get Martha back, and the way I see it, at this very moment, there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop me. And if you try... well. We can toss you off that bridge when we come to it."

Over the course of this little monologue, the Doctor's tone had switched from that of perhaps a professor explaining quantum-physics to that of a passionate, angry man from whom something direly important had been stolen. A parallel transformation had taken place in the Doctor's brown eyes - everyday query had gone to fury. Vancheré could certainly feel the wrath of a Time Lord now.


	14. Chapter 14

**Three points. **

**1) The Doctor gets a little mean here, but we knew that would happen, right? And it's going to get worse. But trust me, he does not enjoy it!**

**2) I realize that there is, at the end of this chapter, a big opportunity for a Tenth Doctor Classic Catch Phrase, but after writing it down, I found it a bit too "whimsical" for the situation. Hard to explain.**

**3) Sorry for the cliffie.**

* * *

**Chapter 14**

Martha Jones gaped in disbelief at what she saw: the stage of the Symphony Center was empty. Nothing but empty chairs and music stands. The musicians had vanished, though the audience remained. And they were all looking at her almost with deadpan expressions; no emotion nor reaction.

Not five minutes ago, she had seen the orchestra members. She had heard them tittering about, and then warming up, and she had heard the symphony begin to play.

But then it had gone quiet, and now the stage was deserted. No trace of anyone having left, or having been there at all.

"Excuse me..." she began to ask the room, her voice reverberating against the acoustic devices throughout the large theater. She stood still amongst empty chairs where no instruments had been left nor even any sheet music could be seen, floating to the floor beneath the vents. Then she called out, "Erm, can anyone tell me..."

Again, her voice echoed through the space.

"Did anyone see what happened?" she asked. No-one answered. Someone in the audience coughed, the seats creaked as people shifted their weight, but nobody said a word.

She looked about contemplatively. She had seen the Doctor disappear from right in front of her while they were in the park at the festival, and even people who seemed to have been looking right at him when it happened, did not react at all. Perhaps this was something of the same phenomenon. Perhaps if Vance Ray the alien resided within the music, and the triangulation she and the Doctor had created had worked, then maybe the Doctor had got sucked into the lair, along with the music-makers themselves. And, if the transport has some kind of imperceptibility property to all who were not privy to the phenomenon, then, that was why these folks were staring at her, waiting for something to happen. There was no orchestra, they had seen nothing amiss, so she was the next best thing, because she was there.

"Okay, erm..." she said to them "Well, due to some unforeseen circumstances, tonight's performance has been cancelled. Please vacate the auditorium in an orderly fashion, and see an attendant to inquire about refunds. We apologise for the inconvenience."

No-one moved. She wondered if they could perceive her at all. She wondered if perhaps she was standing in a pocket dimension which seemed devoid of the orchestra's presence, but the audience was seeing and hearing the orchestra play.

"You can't even hear me, can you?"

"We can hear you," someone in the front row said. Martha looked down and shielded her eyes from the footlights, but she could not tell who had spoken, nor whether the voice had been male or female.

"Well, then, why are you all looking at me?"

To this, there was no response.

And then, like anyone with a secret, an insecurity, a hang-up, she began to feel that they were staring at her because they all knew. They knew she had had her heart broken just a few minutes ago. They thought she had been foolish and juvenile to fall for a man like that to begin with - how could she have believed that someone as well-travelled and worldly as he, could love her? She knew they were wondering it.

"Look, I'm not an idiot," she assured the audience. Then, after a long pause, she asked, "Haven't you ever been in love?"

Once again, an impassive silence greeted her question.

"Relationships are like all other living things," she explained. "It's not difficult to see. Sometimes they grow up healthy and last a long time, and sometimes, some sickness crawls inside, and it kills them. And in this case, the sickness was..."

In the moment of silence that, once again, followed her excuses, she looked around. She wondered why no-one was making a comment or supporting her... or even refuting her. At this moment, she would take _any_ kind of response.

But why should these people support her? Why should they care? Come to think of it, why would they even _know_ anything about this? Why in the world did she think they were judging her because of her relationship woes?

Come to that, why were they all sitting there looking at her? And where the hell had the orchestra gone? This was impossible...

Her eyes scanned the room one more time, and she turned three-hundred-sixty degrees, in place.

"Oh my God," she practically whispered. "This is fake, isn't it?"

Silence.

She smiled. "Oh, why didn't I see it before? It's Vance _bloody_ Ray! Of course it is!" She was shouting now. She laughed, and turned to leave the stage. Her shoes made loud, echoing thumps on the wooden floor, and she pushed the door open and stepped back into the semi-circular backstage hallway.

She reckoned that the fantasy had begun when the orchestra disappeared, but she had no idea how it had happened without her noticing. She stopped in her tracks and called back down the hall for the Doctor, to see if he had made it into this scenario with her, but there appeared to be no-one at all backstage. She didn't linger, she just pushed through the door to the lobby. To her surprise, there was no-one there either.

"Okay!" she called out. "I get it! It's one of your stupid magic song things! Now, what am I supposed to do to get out of here? What do you want me to see, or realise or..."

All at once, a sickly, sinking feeling came over her. "You wanted me to know that my relationship with the Doctor is fake, too, didn't you? Blimey, was that whole thing part of your plan? Was all that time we spent together a fantasy too? Did _you_ do that? Am I going to get dumped back in reality, only to find that there was no love, ever? Just a really _really _frustrating friendship?"

She looked about, wandering the lobby, unsure of what else to do. Her insides were coiling, getting ready to blow. She was heartbroken and literally cut off from the world.

"What do you want from me?" she screamed. Then, in frustration, "Damn it!"

She hoped against hope that the Doctor was still the Doctor, wherever he was, and that his instinct was still to help someone in trouble. He had broken up with her, but hopefully hadn't stopped caring what happened to her. No way he could do that... not him.

And then, something came over the tannoy of the Symphony Center. Some ethereal strings and winds, with no particular melody nor direction, rose up and filled the space. They were accompanied by a piano playing two-step scales up and down on the bass clef. It was beautiful and melancholy...

She thought of going back to the stage to find out if the orchestra had returned, but, she realised, that would be rational, and would make a kind of sense. This thing she was in, it wasn't meant to make sense. She felt sure that the building, and indeed the world, was deserted around her.

And then, she heard a familiar female voice begin to sing. It was the first time since being pulled by Vance Ray into one of his scenarios that she had _heard_ any music outside of the festival, or without using headphones and a computer.

Upon hearing the voice, even before any meaning in the lyrics reached her brain, she began to cry. It was Enya. The otherworldly Irish singer whose album _A Day Without Rain_ had been playing the first time she and the Doctor had made love. She had told the Doctor just a little while ago that if they were ever to have "their" song, it should be an Enya song.

_Once, as my heart remembers,  
All the stars were fallen embers.  
Once, when night seemed forever  
I was with you._

And then the meaning reached her. Once upon a time, when darkness reigned and all seemed lost... they were together.

At least mentally, Martha felt. The world was being ruled by a despotic psychopath, and yet, the Doctor had found a way to keep them united, even as she walked across the planet... and indeed he united the world.

But what was he trying to tell her with this? That perhaps even then, he loved her? That they didn't really need the music-manipulating aliens to show them the way? That their love wasn't really tainted by their interference, or a sham as a result of it?

_Once, in the care of morning  
In the air was all belonging.  
Once, when that day was dawning.  
I was with you._

Her mind drifted back to that early morning just a few weeks ago, the last time they had listened to Enya together. It had felt _right_... all belonging.

_How far we are from morning.  
How far we are  
And the stars shining through the darkness,  
Falling in the air._

They _had _come a long way, hadn't they? Just in a short time, they had developed a real, deep bond that transcended the "new relationship" debris. A strong friendship had given them what they needed to get through the hard times, and there _were_ more hard times to come, she was sure of it._  
_  
_Once, as the night was leaving  
Into us our dreams were weaving  
Once, all dreams were worth keeping.  
I was with you._

Once, when our hearts were singing,  
I was with you.

She sat on the bottom step of the staircase that led to the mezzanine, and wept with relief. They had been tested together, including this very scenario in which she found herself, and yet, they had come through intact. And she now realised that probably everything since finishing listening to _Irénée_ in the library had been part of Vance Ray's little circus. All that talk about tainted love, all the miscommunication, all the nonsense about how "everything" was broken... _that_ was the sham. And the Doctor had found a way to tell her so!

That meant that he knew how to get through to her, knew where she was! Hope filled her heart. Happiness surrounded her. She had a reason to claw her way out of this now, if only she knew how. Could she _will _her way out? Well, it was all she had, for now.

She assured herself that between her might and adrenaline, and the Doctor's brain and resources, she would be free at any moment, and wouldn't have to return to a life without him...

* * *

Worlds away, in the TARDIS, a being made of sound stood still, restrained as he was by the sonic device wielded by a very angry man.

He listened with contempt as the sappy Enya song played over the TARDIS' speakers and wafted into his open ears. He was annoyed that the Doctor had realised how the mechanism worked - how if the alien chose to close off his mind to the music, the victims of his manipulation could not hear it, and would remain that much more clueless.

But now, Martha Jones could certainly hear it. He could feel her inside his mind, and moments before, he had felt that she knew, all of a sudden, that what was happening to her was not real.

Vancheré silently chastised himself. _The silent audience had been too much - gave the game away._

Now, he could feel her grief letting go, her fear abating just a little bit, and now she knew _exactly_ when the song-and-dance began!

She had hope. She was growing anxious to be free, and Vancheré was growing fearful and desperate... it was getting more and more difficult to hold onto her. But he concentrated. He clamped down with his mind.

The song ended, and the Doctor came toe-to-toe with him once again. He aimed the sonic into his eyes, and said, "You're starting to lose your hold."

"My capacity for concentration is formidable, Doctor," answered the alien. "Stronger than some song, even if it is meaningful."

"It's not stronger than love," the Doctor responded, his voice low, and a bit too controlled.

Vancheré laughed. "Well, apparently it is, Doctor, because I still have her, and you don't!"

The Doctor pressed the sonic screwdriver to the alien's head. He wanted to induce pain, in an attempt to distract. Vancheré cried out with the pressure, but showed no indication that had lost his grip. The Doctor forced himself to push through the cries, for the sake of Martha. But he hated being _this _guy.

After a minute, he let off, and sonic in hand, panting, the Doctor stared at the immobilised sound being, and let the wheels turn. On the up-side, at least Martha now knew where he stood - he was in love with her, and he had tried to demonstrate to her that through it all, dark and light, night and morning, they were together and nothing could take that away from them. And he believed it. Love, he was sure, should be enough for her to climb out of the trap.

The alien laughed again. "And he stood breathlessly in his spaceship, and contemplated what to do next!" he mocked.

The Doctor, against his better judgment, pressed the sonic to the Vancheré's throat. The alien gurgled, as though being strangled. Then to his ear, then his ribs. Each body part in turn vibrated, causing searing pain, but nothing could unravel his concentration enough to bring Martha back.

"You're an idiot, Doctor," Vancheré said, now himself panting a bit. "My concentration... it's not immutable. It's like a bridge - it has to have some _give _so that when it's attacked, it doesn't just collapse!"

"You don't say."

"Once the symphony stopped, I got rid of the orchestra. Then the audience. All I had to contend with was Martha in a big building, in a big, empty city. Now, there's no city - there's only the building she's in. Every time I take away details, it frees up a little more energy for me to concentrate... and soon, I'll have her all alone in nothing space, and from there I can push her deeper into my mind."

_There it is, _the Doctor thought. Barring the bad guy giving up, he could usually count on the grandstanding, game-changing monologue that wound up giving the Doctor the upper-hand. Beings who manipulate reality and think it's a lot of laughs to mess with people's lives, well, they usually had some pretty monstrous vanity issues. And it could be their undoing.

If Vancheré's mind, and those of his siblings, had deeper levels like a labyrinth, and he knew how to slowly extract his concentration so aspects of his consciousness, including Martha, could be pushed down further, then the Doctor now knew what he needed to do.

"Is that so?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," replied Vancheré.

"I guess that means it's you or her."

"Grow up, Doctor. You may have got your song through, but I will remind you, she is out of your reach."

The Doctor stared contemplatively at his adversary for a few moments, not responding to the latest claim. Eventually, he took a deep breath, and said darkly, quietly, "I'd like to apologise. I really am _sincerely_ sorry."

"For what?"

"For what I'm about to do."


	15. Chapter 15

**Well, some of you reported that you like a dark, badass Doctor. I hope that's still true!**

* * *

**Chapter 15**

A being made of sound waves, who thought with sound waves, and manipulated sound waves, was inevitably more vulnerable to a sonic screwdriver than the average.

But even _he _didn't know just _how_ vulnerable.

With a frown, half determination, half remorse, the Doctor adjusted the settings on his screwdriver, and aimed it at the alien.

Vancheré's hearing went out, and all sound was replaced with a loud buzzing. Then, he began to experience confusion. _What are you doing, Doctor? What is that thing in your hand? How are you doing this? Where am I?_

Images flying past - brothers and sisters, home planet, playing cruel games with humanoids and laughing. Music went through his mind in pieces, as well as silence, screams, voices talking. He felt anger, glee and everything in-between, the everyday happiness of others giving him all manner of mixed emotions. _Can I allow this happiness? Can I allow them to be free? Yes. No. I don't know. Why don't I know?_

_Who are you, and why are you aiming that thing at me? What have I done to you? Why can't I think? Am I dead? Why am I still breathing? Why is my heart beating in my ears?_

Andrew Jackson, Ana, Miguel, Irénée and every other false world he had created flew past, along with the empathetic misery of all those whose lives he had invaded and uprooted.

_Who am I? How did I get here? Why am I drifting away? Who... what..._

Martha Jones' face appeared, and a brief feeling of _importance_ came over him.

_Oh yeah, her. I should hold onto her. But why? Who is she? What's her name? Why is she here? Why is she significant? Why can't I..._

_When... where... why... how...?_

And then, peace. Floating. A man stood nearby, frowning. He wore brown and had crazy hair. Vancheré smiled at him.

"Hello," the alien said. Then he laughed.

* * *

For the Doctor, the process was not nearly so elaborate. The sonic buzzed in his hand, and the sound-being screamed, occasionally asking disjointed questions, most of them never completed. For several minutes, this continued, and the Doctor had to hold together all of his mettle in order to keep going. He knew that was he was doing to Vancheré was not exactly painful, but it would be frightening, and a horrible thing to have happen to you... one's mind unravelling, piece by piece. Watching it go. _Feeling _the confusion and oblivion take over.

But when these thoughts came in, the Doctor thought of what was at stake.

Could he really face the prospect of _never_ seeing Martha again? In favour of this _thing_, this alien who had put them in the line of fire between the Americans and the Brits, tried to drown the Doctor on a fishing boat, tried to have him killed with a lead pipe, and then sent Martha into a permanent world where she was all alone and acutely unloved?

What was he supposed to do with Vancheré, if not this? Toss him into prison? It wouldn't help. Keep him in a perpetual state of immobility, here in the TARDIS, or somewhere else? That would almost be worse, and it would not contain his mind. His mind was his weapon - the Doctor was simply neutralising it. Total collapse of his faculties was just an unfortunate by-product, and a small price to pay for bringing back the woman he loved.

She was trapped in a pretty tightly-sewn prison, and in danger of being sucked down deeper into a place where he really _would_ _not_ be able to reach her. If there were a way to bring her back _before_ that happened, without being out-and-out _cruel_ to an enemy, then he would have taken it. But things as they were, this was the only way.

_This is the only way._

He reassured himself with these thoughts over and over again, as he listened to Vancheré's cries, and tried not to think of the dark side of a Time Lord's character. This was not the dark side manifesting - it was the Doctor acting on his gut, and on his hearts. Acting for love. Period.

Finally, the screams stopped, and the Doctor withdrew the sonic.

Vancheré stood there on the metal grating of the TARDIS console room floor, and smiled. "Hello," he said, before giggling.

The Doctor sighed, and looked around. "Damn it, where is she?"

* * *

Martha stood up from her position at the bottom of the stairs, and wiped her eyes. She was practically bursting to be free of the Symphony Center, to see the Doctor again and throw her arms around him, and gush about how scared she had been, and how _broken _she had felt. She wanted to hear his voice lulling her, saying he loved her; she wanted to feel his arms surrounding her.

But suddenly, the world around her seemed to blink white, and then come back.

"What was that?" she asked aloud.

Then it happened again, more slowly.

She went to the doors to the outside instinctively, as humans do, when they can't explain their environment. Was it the weather?

But there was nothing outside. Nothing. White. Emptiness. No weather, no Chicago, no Michigan Avenue, no people, no sidewalk - nothing. Reality was withdrawing around her, becoming smaller. Vance Ray must be under duress, he was being threatened and was pulling away his magic. That was good, it probably meant that the Doctor was closing in and had him desperate now. But what would happen to her, once the world around her disappeared completely? What would happen when there was no Symphony Center? What if the Doctor couldn't pull her out before that happened?

Then, a terrible thought occurred to her. She ran for one of the doors that led to the auditorium and peered inside. Also gone - white. All that remained now was the lobby, with her inside of it.

She covered her mouth with her hands to keep from crying out, and stepped back from the doors. The lobby around her blinked out again, then back in, and she felt desperate to hold fast to it, to wrap herself around the staircase banister, as if that could prevent her from being swept away, or erased along with it.

She paced about, scared to death, wondering what she could do to help. Should she step out into the white void? Would that make it easier for the Doctor to access her, however he was going to do it? If that were the case, she felt, he would not have used the tannoy in the Symphony Center to play the Enya song - he would have had it coming in from the outside, wouldn't he?

Again, she wondered, _can I will myself out of here? If so, I really don't know how I could exude more will to escape than I am now! I don't know how to want it more! Should I scream? Beg or pray? Can I communicate with Vance Ray? Can he be reasoned with? Clearly, he understands the concepts of love and attachment - had he ever felt that way himself? Does he have empathy?_

Meanwhile, the lobby around her blinked in and out of existence, and she grew more and more agitated, more terrified by the moment.

And then she felt swept off her feet.

"Doctor!" she yelled, though she wasn't sure why. The lobby disappeared and she was in a white space. She was flying for a few seconds and then...

...she felt she was flying apart. A million pieces of her went in a million different directions, and her entire being felt cold and detached. Somehow, she could sense every piece, knew the direction it was going, and she felt calm.

_It is unravelling,_ she thought, and knew. _Vance Ray's hold on me is being destroyed..._

And like a giant magnet to a million tiny shards of metal, she was pulled back together, totally intact, back in the lobby of the Symphony Center. Though, she could hear music - a Beethoven piece was playing faintly. There was an usher in a red vest standing guard outside each door that led into the auditorium, and to her left, a bartender cleaned out the wine glasses that had been used before the performance. Outside, Chicago buzzed properly, and people walked past, as if nothing weird had ever happened.

She couldn't help it - she cried out with delight and relief, and ran over to hug a grandmotherly usher.

"Miss?" she asked, with a confused smile. "Can I help you?"

"No, I've been helped, thanks," Martha responded. With that, she turned and ran out the doors onto Michigan Avenue.

* * *

Vancheré's physical being was contained for the moment, and in any case, he no longer had any will or reason to go anywhere or do anything. The Doctor burst through the TARDIS doors, and ran through the festival toward Michigan Avenue.

"Symphony!" he said to himself, dodging a man with a handful of helium balloons.

He turned left and jogged down the street, and when he reached the corner, he ran like a maniac into the slow, but still inching-along traffic, amid protests from motorists - mostly cab drivers.

And there she was. Hustling toward the park, to where she knew he would be...

"Martha!" he called out.

She turned, and after an initial shock, she smiled, and stood still, waiting for him to sweep her up.


	16. Chapter 16

**Folks, this is it - the thrilling conclusion. Glad you're all on-board with the steely, threatening Doctor 'cause you haven't seen the last of him! **

**And I'd like to apologize for not giving you the heartwarming reunion scene, but I believe we can all imagine how much they made passers-by blush ;-).**

**Thanks for sticking with me... something new is coming down the pike soon. I have a new outline going, it'll just be a matter of finding time to write it... You guys are awesome!**

* * *

**Chapter 16**

The Doctor and Martha stood still for a few moments just inside the TARDIS doors, watching Vancheré move about the console room with wonder. The Doctor had released him from the immobile grip as soon as they had returned, after their tearful _hello _on Michigan Avenue, which had left the people around them not knowing where to look.

The alien reached for one of the console controls, and the Doctor leapt forward, saying, "No, please don't touch that. That's dangerous." He physically removed the bulbous, clumsy hand from the console, to which the alien responded with something like a dismayed quack.

With that, he locked all the controls on the console and fingerprint-protected them so that whatever the blundering Vancheré played with could not harm anyone or create an unpleasant unwanted-time-travel situation.

"That's what he really looks like?" Martha asked, marvelling at the blobby, six-foot purple thing on legs, with a downturned mouth and droopy eyes.

"Yep. When I first saw him, he looked like James Dean. Had kind of a 1950's teen-ager thing going. But it was a glamour, and it dissipated more and more as I kept pissing him off. It was kind of beautiful."

"But look, he's like a two-year-old," Martha said, walking up the ramp, watching him delightedly try all the controls. "What happened to him?"

The Doctor sighed. "I had to unravel his mind to get you out. I tried distracting his concentration with pain - which I'm not proud of - so that he would lose his grip on you, but it didn't go the way I'd hoped."

Martha's jaw dropped. "I was in his mind?"

"Yep," he told her. "All of his power was mental - and probably the power of his siblings as well. All those worlds they create are part of their consciousness, built inside their minds."

"Wow. I guess I should have known." She paused for a moment, and then, "Wait, you tried to distract him with pain?"

"Yes."

"You tortured him?"

"Well, when you put it _that _way... actually, I guess I did, but not for very long. It was clear that it wasn't working. He didn't want to let you go, so he just kept narrowing his concentration by pulling back on physical features of the world you were in. So that, eventually, all he'd have was _you_ to worry about, and not the Symphony Center, or anything else."

"Oh," she said brightly. "That's why the city disappeared, and then the auditorium, and everything but the lobby. I figured he was under some kind of strain."

"Mm-hm," he agreed. "But the problem was, if all of that could be stripped away, and he got you into a nothing space, then he could pull you down into, like, a subconscious layer of his mind. And I'm good, but I'm not _that _good. I wouldn't be able to get to you there, and even if I could, I wouldn't know how to pull you out. A subconscious is too solid. It can't be unravelled the way a conscious mind can."

"Unravelled his mind," she mused. She chuckled slightly. "Doctor, that's major. How did you do it?"

Vancheré temporarily impeded the discussion by heading at full speed toward the doorway which led to the inner-reaches of the TARDIS. If he got lost in there, there would be no finding him.

The Doctor, once more, leapt at him and caught his arm just before he crossed the threshold. "No, we mustn't go that way. Can you stay in the console room, please?"

"No," Vancheré answered, grumpily.

"You need to stay here," the Doctor told him firmly, still holding onto his arm. "Otherwise you'll get lost."

"No!" answered the purple alien, more vehemently.

The Doctor sighed, and aimed the sonic at him, holding him in place, right there at the doorway. Vancheré protested, but the Doctor muted him.

He bounded up to the console, and said, "How did I do it? Just like I did _that _ - with the sonic. Believe it or not, our friend here comes from a world made of sound."

Again, Martha's jaw dropped. "Made of sound?"

"They are extremely adept at fashioning matter from sound. So their world and their bodies are all sound. And their consciousness as well, which is why they can manipulate songs into realistic scenarios so well. And what does a sonic screwdriver do, better than anything else?"

"Adjust sound?"

"Bingo," he said, tossing the tool into the air, and catching it. "Not hard to pull it apart, bit by bit. But I didn't want to kill him."

The two of them looked at the alien, tied up with invisible string, yelling silently.

"Although, maybe this is worse," he wondered aloud.

"Showing a bit of mercy is never a bad choice," Martha assured him. "All you needed was one aspect of him to loosen up, and that's what you got. And you know, he seems happy. Or would, if you'd untie him."

The Doctor leaned forward and typed some commands into the TARDIS' console keyboard, and a forcefield went up between the console room and the corridor. He then released the alien from the sonic grip - both his body and his voice. Of course, Vancheré immediately made to run for the corridor again, but the forcefield bounced him back onto his bum. He made another dismayed quack, then gave up and began running around the room, circling the metal bridge around the controls.

Martha sighed. "You know, I always figured I'd be a mum someday, but this isn't what I had in mind."

"I know," he conceded. "I'm not planning on keeping him, don't worry."

* * *

There weren't that many worlds of sound in the universe, and after a quick scan, the Doctor was able to track down from which planet Vancheré and his siblings had come. He rematerialised the TARDIS and gave Martha a grave look.

"Hold on," he told her. "This is not going to be pretty."

He took Vancheré (who had been subdued with some vanilla, lavender and warm milk) by the hand and led him out through the TARDIS' door, and Martha followed.

Before them sat approximately fifty beings, of various colours, shapes and dispositions. They had met Ramechac, S'Dromer and Essed'Iv, all of whom the Doctor had described as having a basic "sofa pillow" look about them. These beings were not much different, and some of them even had the former beings' trademark oozing spit.

"Who dares to interrupt the High Council of the Great Planet Ti'urb?" asked a booming voice, coming from the left.

They looked, and saw that they shared the dais with a podium on high, where a six-inch-tall, round, brown alien stood, in front of what could only be a microphone.

"I'm the Doctor, and this is my Companion, Martha Jones," the Doctor told him. "And this is your countryman... or fellow planetary citizen, or whatever you want to call him... Vancheré."

The purple alien smiled and waved at the Council.

"He was discovered on Earth, manipulating music for his own purposes, and fashioning it into dangerous worlds, putting humans into peril. Namely, us. Well, I'm not a human, but sometimes I feel like an honorary human. Anyway - he's been abusing his abilities, and endangering our lives. So we stopped him."

"You stopped him?" asked the tiny alien with the booming voice.

"Indeed."

"What right did you have to do that?"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other. It was a look that said, _this is going to be harder than we thought_, and _get ready to run._

"I just told you," the Doctor said. "He put me and my Companion into peril. We defended ourselves. You'll find that Vancheré's mind is no longer intact. He will need constant care and supervision. I suggest calling upon his family for that little mission."

"No-one commits such heinous crimes against a citizen of Ti'urb!" answered the little brown guy.

"Well, you're wrong about that, because I can, and I did. And it's not a crime, because it was self-defence. And what's more, he is the _fourth_ of your kind to interfere in our lives, to manipulate our consciousnesses. And I'm here to tell you: _we have had enough. _It will not happen again. Do you hear me?"

"We hear nothing, Doctor! Time Lord!"

"Oh, good, you do know who I am," the Doctor quipped. "That's great, because then you'll know that when I say this, I mean it."

There was a pregnant pause, and then the Doctor screwed up his features into a sharp, deathly stare. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, "If anyone from this planet comes near, or uses any kind of manipulation anywhere within a four-hundred light-year vicinity of Earth, or anyone I care about, there will be consequences. I unravelled the mind of one of you with one tiny flick of a sonic screwdriver, and it took two minutes, if that. And in a world made of sound, that is just the tip of the iceberg of the damage I could do."

A din rose up in the room, but the booming voice quieted it, and asked, "What is this nonsense about sonic manipulation?"

"That's right," said the Doctor, showing them the buzzing blue tool. "A sonic screwdriver. I am a fairly patient and merciful man. It takes a lot to drive me to something like this. I do not like killing, and I abhor genocide, destruction of worlds and all things of that ilk. But if Ti'urb pushes me to the end of my rope one more time, I will not rise above it. Let it be known all over this planet: do _not_ come near me, nor Miss Jones ever, ever again. I will _not_ show the kind of consideration to the rest of you that I have showed to Vancheré." His tone had gone cold once more. Deadly serious.

Upon hearing his name, Vancheré said, "_Hellooooo_!" and waved again to the Council. A few of them waved back half-heartedly.

"Any questions?" asked the Doctor.

The booming voice announced, "Under article three, subsection two-point-four of the Ti'urban Constitution, anyone who threatens us as a population shall be considered an enemy of Ti'urb, and declared a war criminal. You are hereby ordered to surrender yourselves to our constables and await trial."

"Yeah, that'll happen," the Doctor said. He took Martha's hand and led her on-board the TARDIS, amid hollers of _Sieze them!_ coming from outside.

Fortunately, the TARDIS was long-since out of reach by the time any constables reached the dais. Vancheré stood and watched it go, and then waved again at the crowd.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Safely away from the Ti'urb planet, the gears hummed, and the Doctor drove them into deep space.

"Where to?" he asked. "Still haven't visited the Starfire on Metasigma Folio."

She stood with most of her weight on one hip, and stared at her hands on the edge of the console. "There's something I need to know first."

"Martha, I could never destroy an entire planet with a sonic screwdriver," he told her. "Not even if I wanted to. Not even if my conscience would let me - which it wouldn't. Not even a world made of sound..."

"Please," she waved him off. "I know you were bluffing about that. I know you would never bring an entire planet down just for screwing with us a little."

"But you understand why they need to believe that I would."

"Yeah. We'd never have any bloody peace," she said, shrugging.

"Exactly. Although, that's sort of how life is for us anyway... but what is it that you need to know? Is it about feeling unloved, like Irénée?"

"No, it's not that. Doctor, do you know what happened to me while I was inside Vancheré's mind?"

"I have a rough idea," he said. "I heard the song he played, and I saw the signs that said _Music Is Love_."

"Yeah, you're on the right track there."

"I imagine that you were led into thinking that music is a metaphor for _us_, and then we went to the symphony, where you were then led into thinking of the symphony as a symbol for our relationship... and then it stopped. It went quiet around us. Am I close?"

"Yes, all of that happened exactly as you're telling it," she told him. "What was the song?"

"Oddly enough, it was called _Symphony_," he told her. "If you want, we can pull it up and listen to it."

"I think I'll pass. I assume there were lines in the song about how 'you' don't want to communicate, and everything about us is broken."

"Yes, as I recall, there are."

"Mm, I'm going to skip that one. Too recent - too close to home. But the thing is, Doctor, once I realised where I was, none of that rang true," she said. "I was no longer equating our relationship with the symphony, I realised that it went quiet because the whole thing was fake. It was a world where everything was fabricated for maximum impact... but despite that, there was something that _did _ring true."

"What was that?" he asked earnestly.

"You said - well not you, but _you_ in the _Symphony _scenario - that our relationship was a sham. That it was tainted by the family of aliens... from Ti'urb. You said something about how S'Dromer had kidnapped you and badgered you into realising how you felt about me. You compared it to being tortured into admitting to a crime you didn't commit."

His eyebrows raised. "Oh. Interesting. I had never thought of it that way."

"Oh great," she sighed. "Glad I could help you connect the dots."

"No," he assured her. "I'm not saying that I now think it's true..."

"You said that because of that, everything we feel now about each other... it's an illusion, and it's time we came to our senses. The family of aliens put us in this position, just to tear us down."

"You're worried that because an outside force helped me see for myself how wonderful you are, and how happy I could be if I would just let myself love you, that it's not real? Because I had help?"

"Well," she shrugged. "The scenario, it got me thinking about it."

"Do you think, even if they had _forced_ me to see my feelings for you that they could unravel it all, just like that? Don't you realise that you're sort of imprinted on my body and soul now?"

"I suppose," she sighed with a smile.

"You think that any stupid alien could get between us, now that we're together?" he asked her, taking her hands.

She continued to smile sheepishly. "Technically, you're an alien. What if _you_ get between us?"

He smirked. "This is a TARDIS, and I'm a Time Lord. On this ship, love, you're the alien. You could be the threat."

She continued to smile, this time in agreement. He leaned down and planted a simple, much-needed kiss on her mouth, and she sighed just a little. It felt like a cool drink of water in the desert.

His lips still only an inch or two away from hers, he whispered, "Martha, the only way that family is going to taint our relationship is with this little seed of doubt that Vancheré has given you."

She pulled back and looked at him, her eyes open widely. "Oh. You're right."

"You've got to let it go. Consider it all unravelled with Vancheré's mind. If you don't, it will just grow like a cancer, and it _will _taint us."

She nodded. "Okay."

"You can let go of that little niggling piece of poison and feel assured of one thing: as much as I can't stand that family of talking sofa pillows, S'Dromer gave me a gift by showing me what was already inside me. She did it because she wanted me to feel negatively about my own actions up 'til then, she wanted me to feel regret. But the up-side, of course, is that regret helps us learn and grow. And Martha, she couldn't have forced me to see something that wasn't already there to regret."

"Well, she can - it's their power."

He shook his head vigourously. "She couldn't force me to _feel_ a certain way about something that didn't already exist within me. The subconscious is too deep to mess with, remember? She helped me extract it myself."

She smiled. "Okay. I trust you."

"Good," he said. "Because I really would like to close this case. I feel like the more we talk about it..."

"... the more actually tainted we have the potential to become?"

"Yep."

She crossed her arms and looked at him quizzically. "When did you become a relationship genius?"

"I'm not. You're just the one having the freak-out," he reminded her. "So I suppose it's all relative."

"I suppose it is."

"So... Starfire?"

"Sure," she said, gently bumping him with her hip.


End file.
